VIOLENCE and verbal abuse pose the biggest safety risk to City of York Council staff, a meeting will hear.

A total of 58 incidents involving people behaving aggressively towards council employees were reported in the past six months - more than any other health risk such as slipping over at work or getting injured because of lifting or carrying something heavy.

A health a safety update written for a meeting on Monday says acts of violence and aggression "continue to dominate the statistics and impact on the wellbeing of the council’s workforce".

There were 190 health and safety work-related incidents recorded between April and September.

The report adds: "The results continue to indicate that aggression and violence is an issue as it has the largest number of incidents reported using the incident reporting system.

"This demonstrates that the work to encourage reporting is having a positive effect.

"It is also essential that such incidents are appropriately investigated in order to address the issues where this is practicable."

Is says the council's health and safety focus during the next two years will be for staff to "go home safe, go home healthy".