Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 38
38
Accepted
Paragraph: 164
New statutory offence would improve data, reporting, and communicate seriousness of retail worker abuse.
Conclusion
The patchwork of existing offences for prosecuting incidents of violence and abuse against individuals is not effective enough to address the escalating scale and nature of offences committed in the retail setting. Introducing a new statutory offence would bring the following benefits: Violence and abuse towards retail workers 69 • Communicate to the police, retail workers, their employers and the wider public that the Government takes this issue seriously and that violence and abuse towards retail workers is unacceptable and cannot be carried out with impunity. • Improve the police’s ability to collect data on reported incidents, rates of arrest and prosecutions for assaults on shop workers, so that the issue does not get lost among a wider consideration of retail or business crime. • Increase reporting of incidents by retail workers which would in turn ensure the Government has a clearer understanding about the scale of the problem and type of offenders involved.
Government Response Summary
The government highlights existing measures by the Sentencing Council, including interim guidance on Covid-19 related assaults from April 2020 and revised assault sentencing guidelines from May 2021, which address aggravating factors for common assault.
Paragraph Reference:
164
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
In response to the pandemic, in April 2020 the Sentencing Council issued interim sentencing guidance that clarified, when sentencing common assault offences involving threats or activity relating to transmission of Covid-19, courts should treat this as an aggravating feature of the offence, meriting a more severe sentence. In addition, the Council published revised sentencing guidelines for assault offences in May 2021. As acknowledged by the HASC, the revised common assault guideline lists ‘deliberate spitting or coughing’ as an aggravating factor. The guideline also includes a new high-culpability factor of ‘intention to cause fear of serious harm, including disease transmission’, which will allow for common assault offences involving threats or activity relating to the transmission of Covid-19 to be assessed at the highest level of culpability. The Government agrees with HASC that it should work closely with retailers to ensure any continued restrictions and guidance on Covid-19 are workable and clear. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) holds responsibility for the regulations regarding the wearing of face coverings, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) worked closely with retailers and supermarkets throughout the pandemic. During the pandemic, the Government published safer working guidance that is kept under review and updated to reflect changes in Government policy. The Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance, includes specific guidance for people who work in or run shops, branches, stores or similar environments on how to make their workplaces Covid-secure for their employees, visitors and customers. BEIS officials worked with businesses to support these activities, including how to encourage the use of face coverings. The sector welcomed the engagement and support from Government departments, and retailers were able to lead the way in ensuring the safety of their customers in line with the guidance. BEIS and DEFRA will continue to work closely with retailers on any guidance needed in future. Improved reporting and recording Recommendation 11 (Page 62) We welcome the Government’s work to provide better guidance and support for retail workers on reporting retail crime. However, it is deeply disappointing that the main thrust of the Government’s response to shopworkers, who have lost confidence in the police response, is to demand increased reporting to the police without also requiring the police to improve its response. It is a serious problem that police forces could not even tell us the scale of reported assaults against shopworkers because they do not currently record the data in a way that allows it to be measured, nor do they keep effective records regarding retail or business crime. We agree that you cannot manage what you do not measure. The police must play their part in ensuring the scale and nature of the problem is fully understood by improving their own crime recording practices. As a starting point, we recommend that it is made mandatory to add a “business crime flag” to offences committed in a retail environment, including assaults on retail workers. This simple step would give an important early indication of the scale of the problem and allow police forces better to understand patterns of local crime and the risks shopworkers face.