FRONT-LINE council employees in north and mid Wales have been subject to over 2,500 physical and verbal assaults in the last three years, an investigation has found - but Ceredigion has the lowest figures.

Almost half of the 2,619 reported assaults took place on staff working at the region’s schools (1,193), leading to calls for more to be done to protect teachers and other educational support workers while performing their day to day duties.

The figures, obtained via Freedom of Information requests, revealed that the highest number of assaults took place in Gwynedd, where 838 incidents involving assaults on council staff were reported between 2015/16 and 2017/18. A total of 315 of these were on teachers and other school support staff.

Ceredigion, despite reporting the lowest number of assaults on its own employees, highlighted instances including physical violence on one of its mental health workers while visiting a hospital and assaults of both a physical and verbal nature on members of the parking enforcement team.

Another example highlighted was a staff member within the family and children’s service being bitten while performing their daily tasks.

A Ceredigion council spokesperson said: “The council is committed to support the health and wellbeing of all its staff.

“Although the number of incidents that compromised the safety of staff are low the council continues to assess and scrutinise each situation, changing working practices and processes where necessary and also investing in new equipment in order to support staff and the services they provide.”

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