Report and Support third report

By providing a facility for everyone in our community to raise concerns about the behaviour, safety and wellbeing of others, Report + Support continues to contribute to the refreshed University Strategy key objectives; to foster an inclusive and compassionate culture where all feel able to be their authentic selves and to build greater diversity across our student and staff communities and make real progress in addressing inequalities.

In nurturing a compassionate and inclusive community, it is essential to acknowledge the reality that members of our community have been subjected to harassment, discrimination, sexual violence, and bullying behaviours. Whilst these behaviours are evident in all facets of society, and our University is no exception, this report is one aspect of a more comprehensive range of work to address these issues. 

Recognising that positive wellbeing relies on an equity of access to assistance, Report + Support provides an online avenue for people to disclose distress.  

The University of St Andrews launched Report + Support in November 2020. The second report covered the period from September 2021 to August 2022. This report will cover the academic year – between 1 August 2022 and 31 July 2023.

Key findings

• The number of disclosures submitted via Report + Support at 200, were comparable to last year at 209.
• Disclosures from staff have more than doubled, growing from 13 in 2021-2022 to 32 in 2022-2023.
• 'Other' incident type selections have decreased from 46 last year to 16 in 2022-2023. We believe that the introduction of additional incident types, such as Racism, have enabled people to categorise disclosures more effectively.
• The most common incident type across all disclosures for students and staff in 2022-2023 was Bullying, with 58 disclosures, compared to 29 last year.
• 42% of all disclosures are anonymous, with the top two reasons being "I want the University to have this information" without sharing their identity and "I'm worried about the repercussion for me or others."

Report + Support provides an online and integrated option for students, staff, and members of our community, to disclose negative behaviour and wellbeing concerns. An important feature of Report + Support is that it provides the choice to disclose either with contact details, or anonymously. Report + Support contains comprehensive and bespoke support pages covering categories from Antisocial Behaviour to Sexual Assault and Rape.

Disclosures made using Report + Support are impartially and non-judgmentally reviewed by practitioners in Student Services, Student Conduct or Human Resources. They endeavour to help and respond to all, although this is limited by the amount of information provided in the disclosure. Practitioners listen to more fully understand the experiences disclosed and utilise the range of support and investigative processes available. The outcome section provides more information about how staff responded to disclosures made. The action plan outlines actions for building awareness and trust in this service and implementing improvements.

People who make anonymous disclosures help to provide information about patterns of behaviour across the institution and raise awareness of the community experience. A unique number is allocated to every disclosure made, which enables people to follow up quoting the number. If discloser’s phone, rather than email, they can maintain their anonymity. 

There have been several key changes to the recording of incident type between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 and we respectfully ask the reader to bear this in mind when comparing the two years. Before June 2022, disclosers could only select one incident type. Since the change, the person making the disclosure can select as many incident types as they feel appropriate, thus improving the comprehensive description of the incident they are disclosing.  This change has led to notable increases for many of the categories, but not necessarily an increase in incidents.

Racism was added as its own category at the end of May 2022, with Drink spiking, Anti-social behaviour, and Safeguarding concerns all added at the end of June 2022.

We initially established two Report + Support Fora in Spring 2021, containing students and staff from across the University, that have continued to meet and consequently shaped the action plan of this report. 

In the previous action plan (2021-22), we committed to:

Provide more targeted support. We did this by: 

1. Authoring and publishing support articles on Street Harassment and Hate Crime.
2. Distinguishing between undergraduate students, taught postgraduate students and research postgraduate students.
3. Adding ‘Student Association Building’ to location options.

Improve trust in the system. We adapted outcome options, for example, ‘Support offered – no reply/declined,’ to reflect more accurately what might happen once a disclosure is made. These have been further updated to include ‘Support only,’ for situations when support has been received, but the person making the disclosure is not making a formal report. We publish these outcomes so that staff and students have a better view of the actions taken by staff in response to disclosures.

Learning from those who disclosed. A feedback form, produced in collaboration with the most recent fora, is now available on the support pages and features on the ‘Thank you’ page once a disclosure has been made. Feedback on the Report + Support platform can be given both anonymously and with contact details, regardless of whether a disclosure has been made. Questions include, ‘What prevented you from using the platform?’ and ‘Please share any constructive comments that will improve the Report + Support platform’.

Increasing understanding in the student and staff community about the disclosure process. Three videos are in production to describe what happens when a disclosure is directed to Student Services, Student Conduct or Human Resources. 

Increasing awareness of Report + Support. The central message of two 'What now?' booklets, produced by Student Services and student representatives, is that it is not the fault of anyone who experiences harassment/hate-related incident or sexual misconduct, they are not alone, and there are a wide range of support and reporting options available to them. These booklets raise awareness of Report + Support as an option for disclosure.

How many disclosures were made in 2022-2023?

During the academic year 2022-2023, there were a total of 200 disclosures made via Report + Support. This is a slight decrease on the previous year where 209 disclosures were made.

Disclosures made by students fell by 13.6% (24) in 2023.

When are disclosures being made?

There are peaks in the numbers of disclosures made during teaching weeks, with the highest number of disclosures being made in October 2022.

Student disclosures follow the semesters. There is, however, no discernible pattern for disclosures made by staff.

Who is making disclosures?

152 identified themselves as students, which is a decrease on the previous year where 176 disclosures were made by students.

Disclosures from staff have more than doubled compared with last year, with 32 disclosures in 2022-2023 compared with only 13 in 2021-2022. Greater awareness of the platform through integration into staff inductions and MySaint, may account for some of this. It is also worth noting that multiple disclosures are sometimes made for the same incident, which reflect an increased number of disclosures, but not an increased number of incidents. 

What is being disclosed?

The most common incident type disclosed by students and staff via Report + Support was Bullying, in contrast with 2021-2022 where the most common disclosures (outside of the ‘Other’ category) related to Sexual assault and rape. In the first six months of 2022 we saw an increase in the number of support article hits in the Bullying support pages, alongside an increase of disclosures in 2022-2023.

The total number of disclosures for staff and students relating to Sexual assault and rape and Sexual harassment and misconduct for 2022-2023 is 49, in contrast to 2021-2022 at 59. Many disclosers selected both categories, increasing the numbers of both individual incident types.

In 2022-2023, the most common incident types disclosed by students were Harassment and Anti-social behaviour.

For staff, the type of incident most likely to be disclosed was bullying, with some types seeing no disclosures at all:

How are people using Report + Support?

Disclosures can be made both anonymously and with contact details.

Students are more likely to use the Named form than staff, with over 60% of student disclosures received this way. Staff are more likely to use the Anonymous form to make a disclosure.

What were the reasons for anonymity?

When asked, one or more of the following options can be chosen:

The most common reason chosen by students and staff is “I want the University to have this information.” The next most common reason is concern about repercussions; “I’m concerned it might impact my future career/studies” has doubled compared with last year.

For staff, the most common reason selected this year was “I’m worried about the repercussion for me or others”: 64% of anonymous staff disclosures selected this, compared with 35% of students selecting it as a reason.

Where are the incidents located?

The data revealed:

1. An increase in ‘On campus’ disclosures.
2. A marginal decrease in housing (both Halls of residence and Student Housing/Private).
3. A decrease in ‘In hospitality venue’.

What are the disclosure outcomes?

Expert staff practitioners carefully consider all disclosures. The outcomes they arrive at are detailed below:

The Delivery of Action Plan section of this report outlines the work that has been done to ensure that outcomes accurately reflect the actions that have been taken as a result of the disclosure, where possible.

A disclosure might be ‘closed as anonymous’ because insufficient details have been provided to take further action. Without contact details there is often lack of evidence to corroborate. However, disclosures that are closed as anonymous are instrumental in identifying patterns that can help us to legislate for a safer community.

The most common outcome for disclosures (excluding being closed as anonymous) this year was “Information passed to relevant staff” following risk assessment (49 disclosures), in contrast with last year where it was “Referred for student conduct risk assessment and/or disciplinary action” (41 disclosures). 

Options are available to identify with a particular gender, ethnicity, age, disability, religion and belief and sexual orientation. These data collection points help the University to identify areas for awareness-raising, action, and support.

Gender identity

Women are overrepresented in disclosures compared with the overall student population. Women make up 58.8% of the student population and 60.5% of those who chose to share their gender as women. Additionally, a proportion of the 24.3% who have chosen not to give this information are likely to be women, increasing the overall figure.

Sexual identity

Though the categories are different, LGBTQ+ sexualities are overrepresented with 35% of student disclosures compared with 22% of the student population.

Ethnicity

Minority ethnicities are significantly overrepresented in disclosures. 39% of students disclosing an ethnicity were from minority ethnicities, compared with 27% of the student population overall.

Age

The number of disclosures from those in older age groups has increased, which correlates with the increase in disclosures from staff.

Disability

'A mental health condition' continues to be the most widely disclosed disability. 27% of all disclosures recorded a mental health condition, and 82% of disclosures recording a disability stated that they had a mental health condition.

Religion and belief

Most people making disclosures either do not have a religious belief or prefer not to disclose their beliefs. Those who chose not to disclose their beliefs made up 47% of respondents.

We will continue to meet with the Report + Support fora and review feedback to understand experiences and further needs for the development of the platform. We are keen to understand and remove barriers to making disclosures and to continue to facilitate effective action. We will listen to students and staff and monitor definitions to ensure inclusivity. We have identified the following areas for enhancement in 2024 as a consequence of engaging with students, staff and this report data. These include:

• Building trust in the platform. We want to better understand the barriers to use and the reservations about making a disclosure. We will bring together expert practitioners from across Student Services, Student Conduct and Human Resources to explore how reports are responded to and outcomes fed back. We will also host round table discussions with students to better understand the barriers to use and the reservations about making a disclosure or its value.
• Better representing our diverse University population. Updating ethnicity categories to include and represent the diverse student and staff population.
• Voicing lived experience. Expanding our incident type options to include Antisemitism and Islamophobia. These additions will help us to understand more of the lived experiences of students and staff, to investigate and provide support.
• Improving communication channels for disclosers. Assisting Culture Shift, the platform provider, with the development of two-way communications for anonymous disclosures. There are still a number of disclosures that are closed as anonymous; developing two-way communications will help those who have made disclosures to maintain contact with staff regarding their disclosure and provide more information if preferred.
• Raising awareness through campaigns. Supporting student and staff initiatives with campaign materials to raise awareness of inappropriate behaviours during key dates such as Anti-bullying week.

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Notes on report analysis

Analysis for this report was contributed by Planning. This analysis was made with anonymised raw data. Where people used free-text, these have been mapped against main categories where appropriate. Any incidents in "Other" that had more than five occurrences have been added as a category.

The data gathered includes disclosures from anonymous and named sources that were made through Report + Support and does not include disclosures made directly to units, for example Student Services, Conduct or Human Resources.  

For all disclosures, there are a considerable number of disclosers who do not give personal characteristics details or choose the option ‘prefer not to say’. This means that the total number of, for example, women disclosing, is expected to be higher than the number who choose to give details of gender.

Authors

• Rebecca Swarbrick, Deputy Head of Mediation and Wellbeing
• Ruth Unsworth, Head of Mediation and Wellbeing.

In collaboration with students, colleagues from Student Services, Student Conduct, Human Resources, Student Association and attendees of the Fora.

With support and advice from:

• Rebekah Widdowfield, Vice-Principal (People and Diversity)
• Jennifer Awang, Head of Insights and Analysis
• Pamela Dobson, People and Diversity Executive Officer.

If you would like to be involved in future student or staff fora, please contact reportandsupport@st-andrews.ac.uk.