Sexual Harassment and Sexual Misconduct

As of August 2025, The Office for Students will add a new condition of registration (E6) to ensure that providers:

• Ensure mandatory visibility and coverage of material and procedures (reporting) are incorporated into the student induction
• Ensure mandatory training of staff who manage this process, act as investigators or are supportive bystanders.
• The use of NDA is stopped with immediate effect- and a statement produced
• Steps are taken to prevent staff/ student relationships, and that staff are aware of the ban.
• Set how the organisation will conduct robust ‘safe’ conversations about what can be very difficult topics

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force in October 2024.  This places a positive legal obligation on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of workers in the course of employment.

The Place strongly adheres to both of these conditions as detailed in the policies linked on this page. The Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Misconduct policy is to be used in conjunction with the Personal Relationships Policy, Student Complaints procedure and staff Grievance Procedure.

Harassment is any unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct that has the purpose or reasonable effect of violating a person's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

Harassment can be a single incident or repeated behaviour and can include imagery, graffiti, gestures, mimicry, jokes, pranks, and physical behaviour that affects the recipient. It can also include treating someone less favourably because they have submitted or refused to submit to such behaviour in the past.

Unlawful harassment under the Equality Act 2010 may be related to the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. Unlawful harassment under the Equality Act 2010 can also be conduct of a sexual nature.

Sexual misconduct relates to all unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. This includes, but is not limited to Sexual harassment (as defined by Section 26 (2) of the Equality Act 2010); unwanted conduct which creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment (as defined by the Equality Act 2010); assault (as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003); rape (as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003); Physical unwanted sexual advances (as set out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission: Sexual harassment and the law, 2017); intimidation, or promising resources or benefits in return for sexual favours (as set out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission: Sexual harassment and the law, 2017); distributing private and personal explicit images or video footage of an individual without their consent (as defined by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015).

For further information and definitions please see The Place Prevention of Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Misconduct policy linked below.

Prevention of Bullying Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy

The Place LCDS Personal Relationships Policy

LCDS Student Complaints Procedure

Staff Grievance Procedure

Public Complaints Procedure

The Place Safeguarding Policy and Reporting Procedures

The Place provides both informal and formal approaches for reporting harassment and sexual misconduct.

When considering what to do about a concern, individuals are encouraged to speak in the first instance with the Head of Human Resources, the Director of Course Leader or Year Group Coordinator, student union representative, or a member of the Student Support Team, mental health advisor or wellbeing officer.

• Students should follow The Place Complaints Procedure to make their report.
• Staff should follow the LCDS Grievance Procedure to make their report.

Both of these procedures describe informal and formal routes that can be used for individual instances, repeated patterns of inappropriate behaviour, or where previous informal attempts to resolve issues have failed.

Students or members of staff who feel they have experienced unacceptable behaviour by a third party should discuss this in the first instance with Human Resources, their line manager, Course Leader or Year Group Coordinator, or Student Support staff as may be appropriate.

Third parties (i.e. all others who are not staff or students) who believe they have experienced unacceptable behaviour by another member of The Place community, or a person involved in its activities have access to thePublic Complaints procedure.

The Place will endeavour to ensure that all parties involved in a complaint are offered appropriate support from internal staff and external support services.

Anyone that is involved in supporting a party involved in a complaint, an investigation or management of its outcome will receive training and if necessary, mentorship. This support extends to:

• Students and Student Representatives
• Complainants
• Alleged Offenders
• Student Support Staff, Unit Leaders, Year Group Coordinators, Course Leaders
• Line Managers
• Independent Investigators

Training on Sexual Harrassment Awareness will be delivered to all staff online via the iHasco training suite and completion of the training will be a requirement for all staff, monitored at staff probationary reviews and annual appraisals. Staff will be asked to repeat this training once every 2 years.

Additional training and mentorship will be provided to anyone who information who information is likely to be disclosed to, including Student Support Staff, Unit Leaders, Year Group Coordinators, Course Leaders and Student Representatives.

Members of staff involved in delivery of training and student induction processes will also receive training in these areas.

Students will receive training from external specialist provider Bold Voices during their induction/meetings week at the start of the academic year. This training is required for all students.

To ensure that staff, students and visitors are aware of and understand The Place’s policies and procedures connected to bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct:

• All relevant policies are available on The Place’s Website, Google Classrooms, and The Place’s Staff Files
• The Place statement on the use of NDAs is posted on the website in both staff and student policy areas
• This policy is reviewed annually by Academic Board, Finance and General Purposes and the Equity, Diversity and Access Committee.
• This policy is publicly available on The Place website
  

By making this information available as outlined above:

• We communicate to staff, students and visitors what bullying, harassment including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct are and how these behaviours are dealt with
• We make clear to staff, students and visitors that The Place takes sexual harassment seriously and to make our physical and social environment as safe as possible
• Students should feel safe and supported to come forward with information about incidents of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct
• Staff should feel safe to self-report if they believe a student, or another staff member, has an intimate interest in them to be able to protect themselves in the working environment.

The Place statement on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct

The Place endeavours to always protect and prioritise the wellbeing of students at LCDS. In line with this commitment, The Place does not and will not use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to prevent complainants from reporting matters relating to sexual harassment/sexual misconduct to the police and other relevant regulatory bodies, or anywhere else.

Following completion of any investigation, and while upholding the principles of natural justice, students retain the right to warn others about perpetrators of abuse or inappropriate behaviour.

Settlements resulting from any such investigation will not include the use of NDAs or similar agreements that restrict transparency.