Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 56
Policing response is failing to match rising violence and abuse against retail workers.
Conclusion
The Committee has heard overwhelming evidence that the policing response is simply failing to match the rising tide of violence and abuse against retail workers. The evidence also suggests that the response varies significantly between police forces: while there are examples of good practice, on far too many occasions retail workers are being left alone to manage dangerous situations which put both their physical and mental wellbeing at risk. We recognise that policing has been increasingly overstretched and that officers are working hard to respond to rising demand with constrained resources. Nevertheless, police forces and the Home Office need to ensure that officers are better able to respond to rising threats and crimes against shopworkers. The police’s failure to attend or follow-up serious incidents undermines trust and confidence, discourages reporting crime, and weakens the deterrent for repeat offenders leaving shopworkers more vulnerable and letting down victims of crime.
Government Response Summary
The government outlines the ongoing work of the NRCSG and its task groups in producing resources for retailers on crime reporting, data sharing, and victim support, and notes the establishment of two new Task and Finish groups on substance misuse and information sharing.
Paragraph Reference:
56
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
National leadership in the response to retail crime is provided by the NRCSG. The NRCSG is an ongoing forum which brings together Government, the police, retailers and others to help ensure the response to retail crimes is as robust as it can be. The NRCSG meets approximately every six months and is co-chaired by the Minister for Crime and Policing, Kit Malthouse, and Tom Ironside, Director of Business and Regulation at the British Retail Consortium. The Task and Finish groups were project groups tasked with addressing specific actions from the Government’s response to the Call for Evidence on Violence and Abuse Toward Shop Staff. The objectives agreed with the NRCSG were achieved, and the outcomes met the actions in the Call for Evidence. The resources produced by the four Task and Finish groups established in June 2020 were published in April 2021 and will be kept under review by the Home Office working with members of the NRCSG, and will be updated as needed. The four Task and Finish groups produced the following resources: • The communications group: the #Shopkind communications for both employees and employers to make clear violence and abuse of shop workers is not tolerated; • The reporting group: a best practice guide to support staff in reporting these crimes when they occur and to ensure a suitable response can be delivered; • The data sharing group: good practice on effective data sharing between businesses and the police to ensure information can be used to better understand the problem; and • The victims’ group: resources to support victims, and to assist employers in supporting their employees. In June 2021 we set up two new Task and Finish groups: • Substance misuse: to look at the causes of retail violence, such as drug and alcohol addiction, and what can be done to address these in the retail setting; • Information sharing: to take forward issues identified by both the Reporting and Data Sharing Task and Finish groups, to provide greater clarity on data protection standards under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and explore the development of a national Information Sharing Agreement.