To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the Safer Place initiative target of reducing violence and abuse against social workers by 25 per cent. by March 2005 was met; and if she will make a statement. (76224)

Data to track this recommendation of the national taskforce on violence against social care staff are not collected centrally.

The responsibility to protect staff from violence and abuse falls to the employers of the staff, and the final report of the taskforce, ‘A Safer Place’, recommended a number of targets for employers to set themselves, against which to measure progress, and to act where standards were not good enough. One of the recommendations to employers was that they should reduce the incidence of violence to workers by 25 per cent. by March 2005 from a baseline of March 2002.