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The system under which the police provide details to landlords about potentially dangerous tenants is not working properly, one of the country’s largest trade unions has warned.

Union unite is set to launch a campaign about housing worker safety at its first ever housing summit next month.

Last week Inside Housing revealed that one housing worker is physically or verbally attacked every day.

Rachel Maskell, national officer for community and the non-profit sector at Unite, said the union had concerns about the effectiveness of police warnings to housing providers. Unite had discussed the issue with both the Communities and Local Government department and the police, she said.

‘We agree that the police should be able to provide details about vulnerable adults to housing providers, rather than letting them find out for themselves,’ she said. ‘But it’s clear that this is not working and we’re seeing this [abuse] continue at alarming levels.’

She added that employees were often unaware of vulnerable tenants and said she had heard of cases where members had been threatened with knives.

The union’s campaign will also focus on how to improve co-operation between the police and housing providers on this issue.

She said health and safety of housing workers was ‘one of the biggest issues we deal with and we’ll double our efforts from now on’.

Steve Sumner, national health and safety policy advisor at Local Government Employers, said guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office stated that ‘sharing information between public organisations should be done when there is a potential risk of a crime being committed or a potential violence’.

‘People should be sharing information if they have specific information on who is potentially violent,’ he said.