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Jobcentres: Crimes of Violence

Answer

The Department for Work and Pensions take any form of abuse and harassment (including violence-at-work incidents) of its staff very seriously. Robust controls are in place to mitigate the risk of unsafe interactions and eliminate violence-at-work as far as reasonably practicable, including security presence, risk assessments and training for our staff.

We review outcomes of our most serious incidents and consider any lessons learned to make improvements to our processes and training when necessary to help prevent reoccurrence.

DWP define assault as intentional physical contact which is directed at DWP or Partner employees (including Security Officers) in connection with working for DWP. Assaults range from minor to most serious. Actual assaults may include reports that resulted in no injury to those that result in major cuts and bruises.

Prior to 2025, regional breakdowns are not held centrally, to provide this information would incur disproportionate cost, however we can provide the national annual breakdown of JC assaults from 2015 to 2024 and a breakdown of JC assaults by region for 2025.

The following table provides the information requested for DWP reported assaults.

Year	Number of Assaults
Jan - Dec 2015	233
Jan - Dec 2016	137
Jan - Dec 2017	238
Jan - Dec 2018	257
Jan - Dec 2019	145
Jan - Dec 2020	65
Jan - Dec 2021	107
Jan - Dec 2022	183
Jan - Dec 2023	212
Jan - Dec 2024	314
Jan - Nov 2025	265

2025 assaults by region

Group Name
Central & West Scotland	9
Central Midlands	13
East & North Scotland	5
Eastern England	17
London	62
North East & Cumbria	20
North West	27
North York & Lincolnshire	25
South East	17
South West	23
Wales & the Marches	10
West Midlands	35
Not recorded to a Group Name	2
	265

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

97198

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Staff Crimes of violence Jobcentres

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk