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The University is dedicated to creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for all. Here you will find a summary of our comprehensive regulations, policies, and procedures regarding behaviour and misconduct, including specific provisions for student harassment and sexual misconduct, and guidelines for intimate personal relationships between staff, and between staff and students.

This webpage serves as the 'single comprehensive source of information' mandated by the Office for Students (OfS registration condition E6), ensuring clear access to vital resources.

Our Commitment to Preventing Misconduct

We are committed to taking proactive and impactful steps to protect our students from all forms of misconduct, including harassment and sexual misconduct. Our ongoing actions include:

  • Transparency and Continuous Improvement: We regularly analyse and publicly share data from our Report + Support portal to identify trends and inform our strategies. These findings and themes are then used to continually enhance our processes and support mechanisms.
  • Valuing Feedback and Adapting Support: We actively seek and evaluate feedback from both students and staff. This valuable input directly influences and improves our training programs and support services where appropriate.
  • Collaborative Policy Development: We engage in regular consultation with the Students' Union on all proposed changes to our student policies concerning behaviour misconduct, including harassment and sexual misconduct. This ensures student voices are central to our policy evolution.

What is Misconduct, Harassment and Sexual Misconduct?

Misconduct

We define misconduct broadly as any "improper interference with our proper functioning or activities." This includes any inappropriate or disruptive behaviour that negatively impacts our students, staff, or the public, or threatens our study, living, or working environment, security, reputation, or good order.

You can find more detailed examples of what constitutes misconduct in Student Discipline Regulation 13.

Harassment

What is bullying and harassment? - Report + Support

Harassment is unwelcome behaviour that makes someone feel uncomfortable, intimidated, or offended. It can be a single incident or a pattern of behaviour.

Our University's Bullying and Harassment Policy uses definitions from two key laws:

  1. The Equality Act 2010: This law defines harassment as "unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment." This also covers harassment by association (due to a connection with someone else) or perception (when someone is harassed based on a perceived characteristic they may not have).

    Protected Characteristics include:

    • Age
    • Disability
    • Gender reassignment
    • Race
    • Religion and belief
    • Sex
    • Sexual orientation
  2. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997: This Act states that a person must not pursue a "course of conduct" that amounts to harassment, and which they know, or should know, is harassment. This law protects individuals from persistent, unwanted, and distressing behaviour. Harassment under this Act can cause alarm, distress, humiliation, or threats/fear of violence. Someone "should know" their conduct is harassment if a reasonable person, given the same information, would also believe it is harassment.

Sexual Misconduct

What is sexual harassment? - Report + Support

Our Student Sexual Misconduct Policy defines sexual misconduct as “conduct that is sexual, unwanted, and causes distress.”

This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Sexual harassment (as defined by the Equality Act 2010)
  • Assault
  • Rape
  • Assault by penetration (as defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003)

The Equality Act 2010 also specifically defines sexual harassment as "less favourable treatment of an individual who has submitted to, or rejected sexual harassment, or harassment related to sex or gender reassignment."

Need More Information or Support?

Our Report+Support portal offers further information, support and advice.

Regulations, Policies and Procedures

Below are the links to the relevant student, staff regulations, policies and procedures related to misconduct, student harassment and sexual misconduct.

Student policies

Student and Staff policies

Code of Practice for Freedom of Speech

Reporting Harassment and Sexual Misconduct

The University provides a Report+Support portal, which students and staff can use to disclose bullying, discrimination, harassment, hate crime, sexual harassment and sexual violence.

If you, or someone that you know, has been affected we are here to offer you advice and support.  Anyone can be affected by sexual assault regardless of gender or sexual orientation, but many people find it difficult to talk about and to seek help. You may choose to disclose information about an incident that happened recently or some time ago. No matter the circumstances it is not your fault. We will treat you with respect and discretion.  Offering support according to your choices.

To report an issue or incident, simply fill in the reporting form using the ‘Make a report’ button on the Report+Support site. You can make a disclosure with or without your personal details.  If you provide your personal details, then arrangements will be made for you to meet with a trained advisor to get discuss reporting options and support available so that you can make an informed decision on what happens next.

Report+Support Information

The Student Harassment and Bullying Policy and Student Sexual Misconduct Policy provide more detail on disclosure, reporting and investigations.

Submissions made via the Report & Support platform are considered disclosures, not formal reports.  A disclosure occurs when an individual informs the institution that they have experienced bullying, harassment, or sexual misconduct. This could be solely for the purpose of accessing support services and may not progress to a formal report. A disclosure can subsequently be utilised as part of a formal report if the individual wishes the University to initiate official action.

A formal report is specifically defined as a disclosure that names an alleged perpetrator and is formally received and considered for investigation in accordance with university policy.

An anonymous report involves notifying the University of an incident without providing personal identifying details. While direct assistance may be limited for anonymous reports, the information gathered contributes significantly to enhancing support services and informing prevention initiatives across the University. It is important to note that anonymous reports typically do not lead to formal disciplinary action.

External Reporting links

University and external support available

If you have chosen to submit a named report, we will give you the opportunity to speak to a Student Welfare Officer or a Designated Safeguarding Officer and they will be able to talk you through the reporting options and support available to you, in a confidential setting.

There is a wide range of support options that are available to you, both within and outside of the University, for students and staff who have experienced harassment and sexual misconduct.

Further information about support options is available on our Report + Support portal:

Each programme team has a welfare lead who can support you, please find further details here Your School and course | Student Hub | City St George's, University of London, if you need to find out who this is. We also have staff trained to receive disclosures about sexual misconduct.

You can contact the SU, who can help you.

Students facing allegations: as indicated in the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy, with a named staff member who they can contact for support. Support is also available from the City St George’s Students’ Union.

Investigating harassment and sexual misconduct

The Student Harassment and Bullying Policy and Student Sexual Misconduct Policy provide more detail on disclosure, reporting and investigations.

Student Discipline Regulation 13 will be used to investigate allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct against students.

The University’s Disciplinary Procedures will be used to investigate allegations against staff:

Information received or obtained in connection with incidents of harassment and/or sexual misconduct will be handled sensitively and always used fairly.

Any information disclosed, shared or report regarding harassment or sexual misconduct will be treated with sensitivity and confidentiality. However, if there is an immediate risk of serious harm or a safeguarding concern, a report may be made to emergency services or safeguarding authorities. Where possible, you will be informed beforehand to ensure transparency and support.

All student and staff records are held securely with restricted permission access. Records will be held in accordance with our retention schedules. Records may be held for a longer period if reports or investigations relate to someone else within the University.

Information will be treated confidentially, and in line with the following:

Information will only be shared where there is a legal basis to do so.

Training

There is a wide range of training support available for both staff and students.

Training for students

We will be launching two online training modules for students – Bystander Intervention and Consent for Students. These will be available for students to complete when their registration status has been confirmed for 2025/26 academic year. These Modules will be recommended as essential for students to complete, and the University will be monitoring engagement and proactively encouraging completion during Term 1 and throughout the 2025/26 academic year.

Also, during the academic year, our Student and Staff Communications teams will also be running campaigns and events to promote awareness.

Training for staff

There are several training options available which aim to support colleagues to fulfil their individual responsibilities to prevent harassment and sexual misconduct.

EDI Essential Training module

All colleagues are required to complete the EDI Essentials module. All new members of staff receive an invite to undertake this module upon commencing at the University.

Harassment and sexual misconduct – Online Training

There is an online training module for staff which explains the definitions of harassment and sexual misconduct along with their role in how they can respond effectively and sensitively in the event that they receive a student disclosure. The training is for all staff, regardless of role and is accessible via Oracle Learning (Clerkenwell/Moorgate) and via Docebo MyTraining (Tooting).

Training for student-facing staff

Colleagues in specialist roles (including roles related to student-welfare, and Designated Safeguarding Officers) complete further training on responding to disclosures of harassment and sexual misconduct. This training equips staff with the knowledge to respond appropriately, understand their responsibilities, and manage their own wellbeing after a disclosure.

Personal Relationships between Staff and Students

Both the (legacy) City Professional Personal Relationships Policy and (legacy SGUL) Code of Conduct on Personal Relationships (Tooting) prohibit intimate relationships between staff and students where the member of staff has some direct academic responsibility, or other direct professional responsibility for the student. The Code of Conduct also prohibits other personal relationships between staff who hold these responsibilities, and students.

While intimate (and other personal relationships between staff/students) outside of the above contexts are not prohibited, they must still be disclosed by the colleague involved. Disclosing the relationship enables the University to assess whether any potential or actual conflict of interest exists and/or whether the relationship involves sexual misconduct, an abuse of power or other improper behaviour.

For further information, please access

Taking Steps to Protect Students

We are committed to taking steps that make a significant and credible difference to protecting students from behaviour misconduct (including harassment and sexual misconduct).

These include:

  • Analysing and publishing data from our Report + Support portal.
  • Using any findings or themes to improve our processes.
  • Taking feedback from students and staff, evaluating the results and making changes to the training and support where appropriate.
  • Consulting with the Student’s Union on changes to our student policies on behaviour misconduct (including harassment and sexual misconduct).

Support from the Student's Union

The Students’ Union is an independent organisation, separate from the university, and offer a confidential, impartial space where students can talk about their experiences and explore their options. With your consent, they can support you in engaging with university procedures or accessing specialist services.

Their trained Advisors offer a safe, non-judgemental space to talk, provide clear guidance on your rights and reporting options, support you through formal or informal reporting, and can arrange for you to speak with an Advisor of a specific gender or background if preferred.

Support is available to all students, whether you’re based at Clerkenwell, Moorgate or Tooting. You can access support by:

Use of NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements)

City St George’s, University of London do not use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in relation to complaints of student behaviour misconduct, including student sexual misconduct and harassment. In addition, since September 2024 the Office for Students has prohibited universities from using NDAs in relation to student allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct.

Monitoring and Review

City St George’s are committed to monitoring reports and actions related to misconduct, harassment and sexual misconduct and reviewing our approach to ensure it is continually evolving to meet the needs of our students, ensure their safety and that the correct processes, support and procedures are in place.

Version History

When updates are made to the content of this page we are committed to making it clear this has happened and making historical versions available.