Report and Support Annual Report 2024

Report and Support Annual Report 2024

Introduction

Queen Mary University of London, launched the Report + Support platform in October 2019, following a pilot during September 2019. Report + Support is a secure online platform which allows students, staff and visitors to report issues of bullying, harassment, hate crime or sexual violence. Reports may be anonymous, or may request contact with staff. This report covers the fifth year since Queen Mary launched Report + Support, covering the period from the 20 October 2023 to the 19 October 2024.

Insights from this report support the work of the Preventing and Addressing Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Working Group (PHASE). Informing intervention and prevention approaches to make Queen Mary a safe and inclusive community. The working group is jointly chaired by Alex Prestage, Associate Director of Culture and Inclusion and Simon Jarvis, Head of Student Wellbeing. The group has representation from across the Queen Mary Faculties, HR, Student Experience and the Directorate of Governance and Legal Services, as well as partnership with Queen Mary Students' Union. The group reports to the Queen Mary Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group (EDI-SG) and is informed by the Office for Students Statement of Expectations and sector guidance. PHASE is currently working towards compliance with the Office for Students Condition E6: Harassment and Sexual Misconduct which comes into force on 1 August 2025.

It is our aim to increase awareness of the Report + Support platform and to encourage reports, because reports are essential to effective prevention and response. We expect to see increases in reports following communication campaigns and events, and consider an increase in incoming reports to be an indicator of trust and confidence in the reporting process and subsequent response. Specifically, an increase in contact requests (i.e. non-anonymous reports) over time is an indicator of increased trust in the university process.

Changes and updates to Report + Support in 2023/24

We have created and published a detailed process flowchart to outline the Report + Support process.

We worked with HR and the Appeals, Complaints and Conduct Office to refine the FAQ pages to add additional detail on the reporting process and the next steps reporting parties can expect after they submit a report. Both of these actions were taken in response to feedback from staff and students that they would like to understand each step of the process before making a report.

Data insights

Overview

The data reported here comprises anonymous and named reports received through Report and Support from the 20 October 2023 – 19 October 2024. It does not include data on reports made directly to another department or service at Queen Mary. In this period a total of 646 reports were received (duplicate reports or inappropriate reports have been removed).

This is an increase of 353 reports compared with the previous reporting period 20 October 2022 - 19 October 2023 when we received 293 reports.

We received 290 reports between 21 and 28 May 2024 following a specific incident. 279 of these reports were anonymous and 11 provided contact details. This report analyses the data including these reports and has sections excluding these reports to allow for comparison with previous reporting periods.

Excluding these reports to compare the general trend in reporting we received 356 reports in this reporting period which is an increase of 63 reports compared with the 2022/23 reporting period.

Total number of reports compared to previous time period

Number and % of anonymous v named reports for the period

As a University we do not take direct action based on an anonymous report. If there is a cluster of anonymous reports relating to a particular department or a particular type of incident, some generalised action can be taken (e.g. making HR aware of a trend in reporting, highlighting to Senior University colleagues when there has been an increase in an incident type being reported).

For action to be taken on a specific report, we require the individual(s) to report with their contact details so that we may request more information and provide advice on options for further investigation and/or support.

As shown in the chart below, we received 205 named reports and 441 anonymous reports.

% of anonymous v named reports year on year comparison

In 2022/23 we received 171 (58.4%) named reports and 122 (41.6%) anonymous reports.

As noted above we received 290 reports between 21 and 28 May 2024. Excluding these reports to see the general trend in anonymous vs named reporting, we received 194 (54.4%) named reports and 162 (45.5%) anonymous reports. There is a slight decrease in the proportion of named reports and a small increase in the proportion of anonymous reports this year.

Excluding the aforementioned reports to compare trends, students continue to report providing their details more frequently than reporting anonymously. This year 53% of reports from students were named, this is a decrease from last year where 67% of reports from students were named.

For staff, we saw 53.3% of reports were named, compared to 44.3% in the 2022/23 reporting period. Overall we have seen an increase in the number of staff reports, 41 in 2021/22, 66 reports in 2022/23 and 78 in 2023/24.

Who is reporting?

Relationship to organisation

We received a much larger proportion of reports being made on behalf of someone else (53.4%) in this reporting period, a large proportion of the reports made on behalf of someone else were relating to a specific incident. In 2022/23 only 22.4% of reports were on behalf of someone else.

Excluding the reports from 21 and 28 May 2024, the majority of reports we receive are made by the person who has experienced the issue (78.6%). Reports made on behalf of someone else accounted for 21.3% of reports. This is consistent with previous reporting periods.

As shown in the table below, Undergraduate students are the largest reporting group, this is consistent with previous years, however there was significant increase in the overall number of students reporting and the majority of the increase was connected to a specific incident. For staff there is a similar number of reports from academic and professional services staff. This trend remains consistent with previous reporting periods.

We received 77 reports (21.6% of all reports) from those who selected their connection to the University as: Other, Friend or Family, Visitor or Alumni. 62 of these reports were anonymous and we are unable to verify if these reports were relating to an incident connected to the University.

Departments

Chart 4 shows the number of reports we had from each faculty or department of the University and if they were anonymous or named reports. The reporting party and reported party may not be in the same faculty or area of the University and some reported parties are not a member of the Queen Mary community. Where reports are made anonymously it is not possible to rule out multiple reports made by one person. When possible we have sought to remove duplicate reports.

The other category is significantly higher compared to previous reporting periods, the majority of these reports were anonymous and 213 of 231 were received during 21-28 May 2024. Chart 5 provides an overview of reports by department excluding reports made between 21-28 May 2024.

Incident types

Please note that the reporting party selects the incident type rather than the University categorising the incident reported.

Chart 6 shows the overall number of reports received by incident type. The majority of reports between 21 and 28 May 2024 were categorised as Hate Crime/Hate Incident and this was the most reported incident type for the 2023/24 reporting period.

Number of reports received per incident type

Number of anonymous/named reports for each incident type

Chart 8 shows the reports received, excluding reports between 21 May and 28 May 2024 to compare trends across years. For the first time Hate Crime/Hate Incidents was the top reported incident category, this increased from 49 reports (16.7% of all reports) in 2022/23 to 98 reports (27.5% of total reports) in 2023/24.

Bullying is the second most commonly reported incident category at 94 reports, (26.4% of all reports). There has been an increase in the number of reports of harassment from last year, from 28 reports (9.6%) in 2022/23 to 43 reports (12%) in 2023/24.

The figures for Sexual Harassment (34 reports in 2022-2023), Sexual Violence (11 reports in 2022/23) are consistent with the figures shown below for 2023/24.

Incident type reported split by relationship to organisation

The table below provides a further breakdown of the type of incident per group.

Bullying remains the top reported issue by staff, accounting for 52.5% of all staff reports, this figure is consistent with the 2022/23 figure of 43 reports. Hate Crime/Hate Incident was the second most commonly reported incident type by staff accounting for 21.7% of reports. There was an increase of 14 reports of this category compared with 3 reports in 2022/23.

Hate Crime/Hate Incidents was the top reported incident type by students in this reporting period (61.5%).

When we exclude the reports between 21-28 May 2024 to compare trends, Hate Crime/Hate Incidents remains the top reported incident category by students with 77 reports (31.3%). Bullying (20.3%) and Other (21.1%) were the second most commonly reported incident categories by students.

When the incident types of Sexual Misconduct, Sexual Violence and Sexual harassment are grouped they account for 12.6% of reports from students. In 2022/23 these incident types accounted for 21.3% of reports from students.

Reports from students about another student accounted for 73.9% of reports. 14.3% of reports from students were regarding a member of staff.

Reports from staff about another staff member accounted for 74.4% of reports. 11.5% of reports from staff were regarding a student.

In the remainder of reports from staff of students, the reporting party did not know the connection of the reported party to the University or they were reporting an incident by someone external to the University.

Reasons for reporting anonymously

Please note that people can select more than one reason

Our anonymous reporting form includes a question about the reasons for choosing to report anonymously. This helps to identify common barriers to named reporting and allow us to consider strategies to overcome these barriers. We want to increase people’s confidence in coming forward with their contact details, so that action can be taken on specific reports.

Concerns about retaliation, that nothing would be done if a report was made and concerns about impact on current or future career continue to be the top reasons given for reporting anonymously.

Number of each reasons for reporting anonymously

Reasons for reporting anonymously by relationship to organisation

For staff, fear of retaliation, concerns that making a report may impact their career, a belief that nothing would be done if they made a report and fear of being called a troublemaker were the most commonly selected reasons for reporting anonymously.

For students, fear of retaliation, concerns that making a report may affect current/future career, concerns that making a report may impact my studies and a belief that nothing would be done if I made a report were the most commonly selected reasons for reporting anonymously.

Contributing factors

Our reporting forms offer the reporting party an opportunity to reflect on and tell us if they feel that the victim was targeted because of any protected characteristics (please note, the victim may not be the same as the reporting party). It is also important to note that multiple options could be selected in a single report.

The categories most selected by reporting parties were None (11.5%) and Being a woman (11.5%). Other (11%) and Religion/Belief (10.7%) were also commonly cited as the factors perceived relevant to the victim being targeted across all incident types.

For Bullying, the categories of Other (32.0%) and None (35.1%) were most commonly selected. Nationality (17.5%) and Religion or belief (16.5%) were the third and fourth most selected contributing factors.

For Harassment, Religion or belief (48.1%) and Ethnicity (35.2%) were most commonly selected. Other (24.1%), Being a woman (22.2%) and Nationality (22.2%) were the third and joint fourth most selected contributing factors.

For Hate Crime/Hate Incident, we introduced sub-categories which allow reporting parties to select the type of hate incident they experienced or witnessed. 81.4% of reports selected Religion or belief and 12.3% of reports selected Ethnicity.

When the categories of Sexual Violence, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Misconduct are grouped, Being a woman (73.9%) was the most selected perceived contributing factor. Other was selected in 19.6% of reports and Age in 17.4% of reports.

Demographic data

Please note, to avoid identification of individuals we have grouped categories where suitable or not published where the number in a category is less than 5.

Gender

Age

Sexual orientation

Ethnicity

Disability

Religion

Case outcomes

Number of cases per outcomes

When reports are closed they are marked with an outcome on the system, the table below details the outcomes of cases in this reporting period split by reporting party category. Please note, some cases remain open and in some cases more than one outcome was selected.

Of the 205 reports which provided contact details, 98 requested to be referred to support services and 159 requested an investigation by Queen Mary. (It was possible to choose one or both options.) On average incoming reports were triaged to the appropriate support in less than 1 working day (0.21 days).

Project Evaluation

Training for students

This was the fifth year of providing the e-learning module on sexual consent, Consent Matters. Between August 2023 and 31st October 2024, 1573 students had completed the course, a slight decrease of 124 students from the 2022/23 academic year.

This was our second year of providing the micro-learning course, 'Harassment and Sexual Misconduct on Campus' for incoming undergraduates. The course covers key learning outcomes and behaviours regarding harassment & sexual misconduct, as well as where to report things and get support as needed, learners were also able to ask questions responded to by the Student Life team. In September and October 2024 the course was sent to 5275 undergraduates. 79.5% (4800) accessed the course, with 64.9% (3425) fully completing the course, a slight increase on last year when 62.5% of students completed the course.

As part of a pilot we held three in-person workshops in 2023/24, delivered by specialist organisations Solace and Beyond Equality. These workshops covered topics including consent, sex and healthy relationships and were promoted to all students.

The Sexual Assault and Harassment Advice service ran sessions on Consent and Healthy Relationships for students on the Certificate in Clinical Foundation Studies course. Specialist sessions on Responding to Sexual Harassment on clinical placements were provided to students in the Institute of Dentistry. A workshop on Responding to disclosures was held for BLSA Welfare Reps as part of their Consent week.

Training for staff

Report + Support briefing sessions were held for staff in the School of Economics and Finance and Student Experience in 2023/24.

Responding to disclosures of sexual violence and harassment sessions were run for Library staff.

The Sexual Assault and Harassment Advice service delivered 7 workshops to Staff and Students in the Blizard Institute on Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence. A further two workshops were delivered to the Institute of Dentistry.

Awareness campaigns

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (Nov 2023 - Dec 2023)

During the 16 days we held training for staff on LGBTQ+ experiences of domestic abuse, a workshop for students on Building a Culture of Consent and a drop-in information morning where we invited external support services along to raise awareness of support available at QMUL and externally.

Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week (Feb 2024)

During this week we organised an open workshop for students on Mental Wellebing, Sex and Healthy Relationships with Beyond Equality.

Hate Crime Awareness week (Oct 2024)

We held an information stall for staff and students raising awareness of what Hate Crime is and providing guidance on how to access support and how to report it to Queen Mary and to external services.

Awareness of Report + Support

Our Report + Support webpages received 8,823 unique visits in this reporting period. This is a decrease from last year where we received 16,362 views that was as a result of links to our support articles being shared on third party websites. We continue to receive disproportionally high views on two articles, excluding these pages we received 6,153 views which is an increase on last year's figure of 5,223.

For the second year we included a question in the survey sent to new students following Welcome week relating to Report + Support. 'During Welcome week did you hear about Report + Support?' 61.4% of respondents answered Yes and 38.6% answered no.

We held an information stall to raise awareness of Report + Support during Welcome Week 2024 and worked with internal communications teams to ensure it is referred to in University communications for staff and students.

Action plan

This report is shared with the Preventing and Addressing Harassment and Sexual Misconduct working group (PHASE) and approved for publication by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering group (EDISG).

Data and insights from this report are used by PHASE and the Policy & Campaigns Manager (Tackling Sexual Violence, Harassment and Hate Crime) to prioritise areas of work.

In the remainder of the 2024/25 academic year we will continue to pilot the Inclusive Leadership workshops for students, delivered by a specialist organisation, as part of the Queen Mary Students Union Skills Award. There will be a second launch of the 'Harassment and Sexual Misconduct on Campus' micro-learning, for students joining in January 2025.

We are working closely with colleagues in PHASE and across the University to introduce measures to comply with the Office for Students Condition E6: Harassment and Sexual Misconduct which comes into force on 1 August 2025.

We welcome suggestions and feedback, please contact reportandsupport@qmul.ac.uk to share any thoughts.