Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of verbal abuse towards Departmental staff; and what steps his Department is taking to better protect departmental staff.

There is zero tolerance for bullying across the Civil Service. The MoJ also has policies in place to support staff facing any form of bullying, harassment or victimisation while at work.

The table below shows the number of grievances raised by MoJ staff (including agencies) where the grievance reason includes "Bullying" or "Harassment - sex", and the outcome is either "Upheld" or "Partially Upheld", by year.

Notes and caveats:

• Data covers employees in Ministry of Justice Head Quarters, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, Legal Aid Agency, Office of the Public Guardian and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.
• Data suppression is applied where the number of cases is less than 5.
• Grievances can be raised for multiple reasons; cases are selected where the relevant reason is cited.
• Year is based on year the grievance was opened on the case management system.
• Grievances are included where the outcome was "Upheld" or "Partially Upheld".
• If an appeal on the original case outcome has been made, the appeal outcome is used rather than the original case outcome.
• In a small number of cases multiple outcomes are recorded, these have been included if "Upheld" or "Partially Upheld" is one of the outcomes.

Grievances may only be dismissed if it is determined that they have been submitted for vexatious or malicious reasons. Data on grievances dismissed for these reasons are not held on the Ministry of Justice management system.

The number of formal grievances raised by MoJ staff where the reason includes "Bullying" is set out in the table below, including those which were not upheld.

Notes and caveats:

• Data covers employees in Ministry of Justice Head Quarters, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, Legal Aid Agency, Office of the Public Guardian and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.
• Data suppression is applied where the number of cases is less than 5.
• Year is based on when the grievance was opened on the case management system.
• MoJ moved to a new grievance reporting system during 2017. The first year for which complete data is held is 2017.
• Includes all grievances regardless of outcome, including those which were not upheld.
• MoJ and executive agency payroll staff average headcount for 2017*, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

*Please note: the 2017 average staff in post figure is based on data covering March to December 2017. A new HR database was introduced in early 2017 and figures from January and February 2017 data are not regarded as robust.

No assessment has been made of trends in the level of verbal abuse towards Departmental staff as the MoJ does not hold relevant data on central systems.