The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines work-related violence as any abuse, threats, or assaults linked to a person’s job, including verbal or online abuse.
This can come from members of the public, service users, or others and can be verbal abuse or threats made face to face as well as by telephone, letters or online.
Councils are experienced in supporting the physical safety of their employees, but they are still adapting to the challenges of online abuse, which is not yet clearly defined in UK law.
Online abuse and intimidation are emerging challenges for employers and traditional health and safety policies and management guidance may not adequately cover them.
While serious incidents, such as hate crimes and harassment or threats to life, have robust definitions and thresholds for police charges and legal consequences, the UK legal system does not have an absolute definition for online harassment. This does not lessen the duty for employers to ensure appropriate support is in place for affected staff, especially as some forms of online abuse and harassment may amount to hate crimes and malicious communications, and may therefore have criminal consequences.
Online harassment
Online harassment can be carried out by known individuals and/or groups and/or anonymously. It is known by a variety of terms including cyberbullying, cyber aggression, online bullying, and cyber harassment.
There is no legal definition of cyber bullying, however it can broadly be described as the use of information and communications technology to support deliberate and hostile attempts to hurt, upset or humiliate another person.
This can include messages, comments or ‘tweets’ via an online platform (such as X, Facebook or Instagram), blogs, messaging boards (such as Reddit), or direct contact via email or mobile phone (including texts and other instant messages). The posting of private or personal details about someone online (known as ‘doxing’) would also be considered cyber bullying.
Under the legal framework, single instances or comments may not always amount to harassment, but if it is offensive, abusive, threatening or intending to cause distress it may be considered malicious communication.
In determining whether abusive speech is criminal, the police must balance several considerations, including freedom of expression and journalistic expression.
Regardless of whether the abusive or intimidating message(s) results in police action, employers should consider what levels of support the member of staff experiencing this may need.
Additional information
The Crown Prosecution Service website has useful additional information for understanding online harassment or crimes:
Abuse of a colleague within the local authority
It's important to note that abuse of a colleague within the local authority - including online abuse - is treated separately from abuse from members of the public. Workforce policies must clearly define acceptable behaviours towards other employees and explain the consequences where this is not adhered to, including the potential for police involvement for serious cases.