Overview of volume and incident types 21/22 and 22/23 report
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to provide insight into the types and volume of reports for academic year 21/22 and academic year 22/23.
All reports are taken seriously and, where contact details have been provided, are followed up by a staff member in Student Wellbeing Services (SWS).
Anonymous reports are stored so that trends can be tracked.
Students who report incidents and provide their contact details are contacted and offered support within SWS. They are also offered advice about reporting to the police (where appropriate), reporting to the University via the Student Disciplinary Procedure and referred to external agencies where appropriate.
Students who report gender based violence and/or harassment via Report and Support are assigned a Sexual Violence Liaison Officer (SVLO). The SVLO acts as a point of liaison both within the University (organising for example extensions, breaks and exceptional circumstances for students where appropriate; making referrals for appropriate support such as counselling or support from a Mental Health Advisor) and externally (being the point of contact for the police, Sexual Assault Referral Centres etc with the consent of the student).
Student Wellbeing Services Advisors work with students who are experiencing bullying and harassment, and work in a similar way to SVLOs.
If a student has reported another student and identified them, the University takes action under the University Student Disciplinary Procedure.
Interim measures may include (but not limited to):
- No Contact Order - a no fault measure (which needs to be agreed to by both students) which precludes either student from contacting the other including via third parties, and
- Precautionary suspension where the allegation is serious and risk deemed to be significant
A Disciplinary Panel determines the outcome after receiving evidence from both students and makes a decision based on the balance of probabilities (i.e. was it more likely that not that the offence occurred).
Disciplinary measures may include withdrawing the reported student from the University (in the most serious cases), suspension for a period of time, sending a letter of apology and undertaking educational workshops.
Data insights
Overview
Total number of reports 22/23 compared to 21/22
Number of reports in academic years 22/23 and 21/22 showing an overall increase in reports
Incident types
Please note that people can select more than one option for incident type
Number of reports received per incident type academic year 22/23
| Bullying | 11 |
|---|---|
| Discrimination | 16 |
| Harassment | 11 |
| Other | 37 |
| Sexual Harassment | 2 |
| Sexual Violence | 3 |
academic year 22/23
Reports by incident report academic year 21/22
| Bullying | 10 |
|---|---|
| Discrimination | 3 |
| Group | 7 |
| Harassment | 14 |
| Other | 12 |
| Victimisation | 2 |
Following recent updates to the Report & Support platform, it is now possible to reclassify 'Other' reports if detail within the report indicates a specific category. For future reports this will be done to provide a more accurate reporting overview.
Next steps
The next steps for the University include:
- publishing Report and Support data at least once a year on the Bath Spa website
- improve clarity around the nature of the reports by analysing the 'other' category and where possible assigning an appropriate label
- increasing the awareness of both Report and Support and the SVLO service to increase reporting rates
- Use the data to inform any necessary policy changes or changes to our processes or offers.