Aberdeen City Council launches teacher 'whistleblower' scheme

Aberdeen City Council is introducing a "whistleblowing" form for teachers who feel they are being discouraged from reporting violent incidents by pupils.

The move follows an EIS union report into violent behaviour in the city's schools.

It suggested teachers were being encouraged not to report incidents in a drive to keep down exclusions.

The council said it had always encouraged staff to report violent incidents.

The details of the whistleblowing scheme were contained in an update letter sent to teachers, which has been seen by BBC Scotland News.

In this, the council's interim chief education officer Shona Milne said the local authority holds "no local evidence" of suggestions that staff are prevented from reporting incidents.

She adds: "While I have no evidence of senior staff preventing the reporting of incidents, I have taken the decision to immediately establish a whistleblowing form to enable any staff who feel that they are being discouraged from reporting to flag these concerns."

The update follows the EIS Aberdeen survey of nearly 800 members.

More than a third said they had been assaulted by a pupil, and nearly half reported violent pupil behaviour in school every day.

Ron Constable, branch secretary of the Aberdeen EIS, said the union had concerns over the introduction of a whistleblowing system.

"The traditional way for members to raise concerns is through their line managers or to come to their trade union - in this case the EIS - and we would give advice," he said.

"If it is a real issue then we will escalate it through the quality improvement manager, or if necessary to the chief education officer.

"So I'm a little concerned that this seems to be bypassing the trade union process."

Mr Constable said the union was still waiting for a date to be fixed for a meeting with the council to discuss both the report's findings and the letter.

"As of yet we haven't met with Aberdeen City Council to discuss the EIS report and the very valid concerns that have been raised by our members," he said.

"We have given them opportunities to meet with us, but they've declined because of diary commitments.

"That is quite surprising, given health and safety is the highest priority we have in our service."

He added that the council update appeared to be "rejecting some of the concerns that our members have around blame culture and exclusion", and that this also needed to be discussed.

An Aberdeen City Council spokeswoman said: "We have always encouraged staff to report incidents.

"The suggestion that staff were being discouraged was of concern so we felt an additional mechanism, given the seriousness of the allegation, was worth putting in place so that we can address any issues that we are unaware of."