New guidance is set to warn UK universities against using non-disclosure agreements in sexual misconduct cases but will stop short of an outright ban on staff-student relationships.

The guidance on staff-student sexual misconduct, to be issued this summer, comes after ¡°the sector and its leaders have for too long been too slow in responding to abuses of power and privilege¡±, said Cara Aitchison, vice-chancellor of Cardiff Metropolitan University, who chairs Universities UK¡¯s advisory group on the issue.

Professor Aitchison told a UUK conference on violence and harassment in higher education that the guidance would call for an end to the use of non-disclosure agreements ¡°in cases of sexual misconduct, to prevent passing the problem from one university to another¡±.

Times Higher Education revealed in 2019 that UK universities had issued nearly 11,000 non-disclosure agreements in a five-year period. Concerns have been raised that universities use the agreements to protect their reputation, but as a result perpetrators of abuse are able to seek jobs elsewhere and potentially reoffend, with no?risk of their past conduct being disclosed.

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Working with the 1752 Group of academics and the National Union of Students, UUK has gathered ¡°a body of evidence¡± that highlighted the prevalence and severity of the problem of staff-to-student sexual misconduct, Professor Aitchison told the conference.

The new guidance will cover how universities should change their culture, policies, practice and data to end this particular kind of harassment.

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Universities will be asked to develop a clear and robust university-wide policy to address staff sexual misconduct, she said.

The guidance will call for universities to prevent staff engaging in relationships with any students they have a professional relationship with and to evaluate the merits of an outright ban on sexual relationships between staff and students. ¡°We now have a number of universities that do this; it may be the beginning of a wave,¡± Professor Aitchison said.

However, the guidance itself ¡°stopped short of calling for an outright ban on consensual staff-student relationships, simply because we are devising guidance for autonomous institutions¡±, she explained. ¡°But for those universities that do still permit relationships, there has to be a policy. It is a clear conflict of interest [even if the staff member is not directly responsible for the student¡¯s education].¡±

Last year,?THE reported that only six UK universities explicitly prohibited sexual relationships between teaching staff and students. In a survey of 102 institutions, 51?simply discouraged such relationships, and 45 gave no guidance at all.

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Professor Aitchison added that the guidance was also based on ¡°growing evidence of good practice, including the appointment of sexual violence liaison officers in a number of universities, [and] the wider engagement with the discourse of gender-based violence across the sector¡±.

Alongside changing the culture, the guidance will also ensure that students feel empowered to make disclosures and reports when necessary. Professor Aitchison said the report ¡°will be our call to action¡±.

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com