Information relating to the Acceptable Behaviour Group (FOI)

Request

Request to Social Security.  Please supply the following:

A.

Confirmation of the date when the Acceptable Behaviour Group was first established;

B.

Confirmation of the legal authority under which the Acceptable Behaviour Group was established, enclosing the relevant decision of the Minister, if applicable, or other official documents;

C.

The number of people who are members of the Acceptable Behaviour Group, their names and job titles and whether or not they are all employees of the Social Security Department;

D.

Annual statistics showing the number of individual incidents, including a description of the type of each incident, since the Acceptable Behaviour Group was formed, which have been reported by Department officers and resulted in some action being taken, e.g. writing letters to benefit claimants informing them that their behaviour contravened the Department’s policy on acceptable behaviour;

E.

Annual statistics, if not already included in the answer to question 4 above, showing the number of times the Department has taken a decision to classify an individual as a ‘Potentially Violent Person’, since the Department first started classifying individuals in this way and  whether the Department has ever disclosed this information to third parties (other than to the States of Jersey Police for the purpose of reporting an alleged crime see question 9) without the knowledge or consent of the individual involved.

F.

Confirmation that before any such decision is taken to classify an individual as a ‘Potentially Violent Person’, the accused individual is always afforded a right to a fair hearing in accordance with the international principles of natural justice and further confirmation that after any such decision has been taken, the affected individual is then informed that they have a right to appeal that decision and how that appeal can be made and to whom;

G.

Confirmation of how many Department officers are legally authorised to classify an individual as a ‘Potentially Violent Person’ and who gave them the authority to make such decisions;

H.

The annual costs, since it was established, of running the Acceptable Behaviour Group and whether those costs include an estimate of the actual administrative time spent by staff in making decisions about acceptable behaviour or classifying individuals as ‘Potentially Violent Persons’.

I.

Confirmation of the annual number of reported incidents, since the Acceptable Behaviour Group was established, involving allegedly unacceptable behaviour which resulted in Department officers reporting the incident to the States of Jersey Police and confirmation of how many such incidents that were reported by Department officers to the States of Jersey Police eventually led to the individual whose behaviour was reported being prosecuted for a criminal offence.

Response

This request has been answered by the Social Security department and States of Jersey Police:

A.

The Acceptable Behaviour Group was established in March 2004 under the previous name of the Violence in the Workplace Group. 

The name was changed to Acceptable Behaviour Group in 2013.

B.

The Social Security department has a statutory duty under the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 to ensure the Health and Safety of their workers. 

Article 3 of this law sets out the general duties of all employers in Jersey.  

Violence and aggression by customers towards staff, whilst rare in relation to the number of interactions taking place, does unfortunately happen and is considered to be a high risk matter in Health and Safety terms. 

In addition, the department has a duty of care for health and safety of staff and customers.  

For these reasons, the department has a policy and procedures to manage this risk. 

Attached are the departments policy and procedures on acceptable behaviour.

C.

The Social Security department can confirm that there are 11 people who sit on the Acceptable Behaviour Group.  

10 Social Security staff and a representative from Careers Jersey, part of Education Sport and Culture, form the group. 

Careers Jersey staff are included in the group as they operate their customer facing services from the Social Security department building in La Motte Street and the potential risk to these staff members is the same as that Social Security staff are exposed to.

The names and job titles of the Acceptable Behaviour Group are withheld under Article 25 Personal Information and Article 38 Endangering the Health and Safety of Individuals.

Public release of names or job titles would likely jeopardise the health and safety of these staff and compromise a staff member’s right to a private family life. 

Therefore, after consideration, withholding the names and job titles of the Acceptable Behaviour Group outweighs the public interest in disclosure of this information.

D.

During 2014, there were approximately 350,000 customer interactions with the department.

Of these interactions, 42 incidents were reported to the Acceptable Behaviour Group. 

Only a small minority of individuals breach the department’s policy on acceptable behaviour, and it is in these cases that action is taken to protect Social Security department staff and the public. 

The table below sets out the number of incidents which have been reported by staff to the Acceptable Behaviour Group since 2004.

Data of actions under the Acceptable Behaviour Policy is not held prior to 2014. Records on the type of incident are only available for 2014 and 2015. 

Potentially Violent Person (PVP) markings are subject to an annual review. 

When a marking is removed, the incident report is destroyed along with copies of any correspondence sent to a customer in relation to their behaviour whilst engaging with the department.

In 2014, 30 customers received letters regarding their behaviour. 

Up to 17 August 2015, 11 letters have been issued during 2015.  

Not all incidents of inappropriate behaviour are dealt with by letter.  Some may result in the individual being contacted by telephone or, if for example the police become involved, the matter will be handled through the criminal justice system.

Type of incident 2014

Type of incident 2015 to date

E.

The Social Security Department is only able to provide the number of individuals who are currently marked on the Social Security computer system as a PVP. 

As at the 17 August 2015, this number totalled 48. 

Once a person has the PVP marking removed, the department does not retain a record of it. 

The Social Security department discloses names of those with a PVP marking to Careers Jersey due to their location in the same building and, if relevant, through the Jersey Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (JMAPPA).

F.

As stated above, the primary purpose of the Acceptable Behaviour Policy and Procedure is to ensure the health and safety of staff and customers and the PVP marker is a management tool to help the Social Security department fulfil its statutory requirements. 

Therefore, no appeal provisions are required. 

The use of PVP markings has no bearing whatsoever of a person’s statutory entitlement to benefits. 

However, the policy does allow that decisions may be reversed if further information is provided.

G.

The Acceptable Behaviour Policy and procedures have been agreed by the senior management team of the Social Security department. 

This authorises the Acceptable Behaviour Group to make decisions regarding the application of the PVP marker.

H.

The Social Security department does not hold specific information as to the cost associated with staff time in running the Acceptable Behaviour Group. 

The cost and administration is part of Social Security department activities and is not individually accounted for.

I.

The Acceptable Behaviour Group is not necessarily the responsible party for invoking police intervention.  

If a sudden violent incident occurred, any member of staff or the public is empowered to call the emergency services. 

Once it is identified that an offense has been committed, it is a matter for the criminal justice system and not the Social Security department.

The States of Jersey Police call records do not hold information relating to the Social Security department Acceptable Behaviour Group or the ‘Potential Violent Person’ marking.

The States of Jersey Police introduced an electronic call recording system from 2009. 

Since 2009, the States of Jersey Police can confirm 136 calls received from SSD. 

For the States of Jersey Police to confirm if an arrest or prosecution was made, each individual case would have to be reviewed manually. 

As the States of Jersey Police do not hold a record of individuals marked as ‘Potentially Violent Persons’, we are unable to confirm which, if any, of the 136 calls received from Social Security Department are related to the Acceptable Behaviour Group or ‘unacceptable behaviour’. 

A manual review of all cases dating back to 2004 would be in excess of the cost limit of 12.5hrs of staff time.

Exemption(s)

FOI exemption(s) applied:

Article 25 Personal Information

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if
(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and
(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

Article 38 Endangering the safety or health of individuals

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to

(a) endanger the safety of an individual; or

(b) endanger the physical or mental health of an individual.

Refusal Notices:

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Justification for Exemption:

The names and job titles of the Acceptable Behaviour Group are withheld under Article 25 Personal Information and Article 38 Endangering the Health and Safety of Individuals.

Public release of names or job titles would likely jeopardise the health and safety of these staff and compromise a staff member’s right to a private family life. Therefore, after consideration, withholding the names and job titles of the Acceptable Behaviour Group outweighs the public interest in disclosure of this information.