Dunedin City Council health and safety manager Jane Pearce told yesterday’s Audit and Risk Committee meeting council staff increasingly faced aggression or violence — eight cases had been recorded in the past month.
Incidents of note in Ms Pearce’s health, safety and wellbeing report for July included a staff member who had been verbally abused over the phone by a person whose grant application was unsuccessful.
As a result, the council was reconsidering how to inform unsuccessful applicants.
Three Waters and Transition general manager David Ward said the council tried to avoid being a faceless organisation and it was important to offer a personal approach.
"The down side of that, of course, is you can be exposed."
Cr Christine Garey said she was disappointed but not surprised by the rise in incidents.
Committee chairman Warren Allan said the issue was sector-wide.
"All local government entities within the country are facing this. So we do not want to think that it’s just Dunedin alone."
In his experience, issues tended to arise around matters of parking, swimming pools, libraries and at public desks.
Ms Pearce said people in marked council vehicles and working in transport were also targets for abuse.
Council parking staff would soon use two cars fitted with licence plate recognition technology to enforce rules, which was likely to reduce health and safety risks including "third party behaviours", the report said.
Council chief executive Sandy Graham said an investigation had begun into staff stress from shifting expectations and deadlines for the nine-year plan.
An incident where a security guard was "not alert" during a June council meeting was also being investigated.
A council employee engagement and wellbeing survey was considered, with the public excluded, at yesterday’s meeting.
The survey results were still to be shared with staff and a high-level summary would be made public "in due course", a council spokesman said.
