Conwy: Rise in aggression towards councillors since Covid

Officers at Conwy Council say the rise in aggression towards staff has been compounded by the pandemic

Violence and aggression against a council's members and staff has seen a rise since the pandemic, according to a new report.

The report highlighted "major" risks posed to Conwy County Council representatives by the public.

Council officers said they believed the aggression had been worsened by both the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

The authority is launching a project to look at the root cause of the rise.

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The council's finance and resource overview scrutiny committee was told there had been a "year-on-year" increase in incidents of verbal abuse.

Amanda Jones, corporate performance and improvement manager, said the authority recognised that "officers and members of staff are under extreme pressure, as are members of our community", and that "mitigation" would be put in place to support staff and members.

During council meeting debate, councillor Paul Luckock referenced the deaths of MPs following attacks by members of the public, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

'They are angry and frustrated'

But he suggested that council officers were overly-concerned with the risk of violence and the public just needed to be better managed.

"I worry about some of the routes we are going down because I think it is about demoralising people and lodging fear," he said.

He said some of the cases he'd been made aware of included members of the public being "angry and frustrated" that they "are not getting the service or what matters most to them".

Mr Luckock added that "greater work needs to be done with officers and councillors about how we engage the public and how we work with them".