Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 22
22
Accepted in Part
Paragraph: 106
Many retail workers receive insufficient employer support for reporting incidents and difficult situations.
Conclusion
Employers have a duty of care and play a vital role in ensuring their employees have the confidence to report incidents, and the appropriate support to deal with difficult situations. Evidence from our public survey, and the Government’s 2019 call for evidence, suggests that many retail workers are not getting the support they need from their employers.
Government Response Summary
The government highlights existing support for victims through NRCSG resources, including webinars and case studies, and ongoing work with restorative justice charities. It also commits the Home Office and NRCSG to review current resources and consult on creating an Employers Charter to enhance advice, training, and support for victims and employers.
Paragraph Reference:
106
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
The work of the NRCSG has a strong focus on providing support those who are victims of violence and abuse in the course of their work in a retail setting. On 22 April 2021 the British Retail Consortium hosted a webinar event to launch the resources produced by the Task and Finish groups; the webinar opened with a video of a retail manager speaking about her experience of violence and abuse at work. The impact on victims have also been captured in case studies on the NRCSG webpage hosted on the British Retail Consortium website. The resources developed by the Task and Finish groups to support victims include a link to Suzy’s Charter. Further work is ongoing to explore other ways to support victims, for example the Home Office is currently working with restorative justice charities to include further information on the NRCSG webpage about how restorative justice interventions can be used, where appropriate, in relation to incidents experienced by retail workers. The Home Office, working with the NRCSG, will review the resources provided on the webpage to consider what additional advice, training and support victims and employers would like to see. We will consult the members of NRCSG about whether they would support the creation of an Employers Charter, working with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.