Has Scotland slipped behind England on safety for students?

There’s a mixture of pointing to all the work that Scottish institutions are doing, with a reminder that none of this is publicly funded. But I’m not sure that, even given the funding situation, that progress is as impressive as the update is trying to make it sound.

The frame here is that it’s almost a decade since Universities UK launched a report on violence against women, harassment and hate crime affecting university students.

It updated on progress in 2019, and now there’s a fresh update off the back of a survey of all 19 higher education institutions in Scotland.

It says that 95 per cent of institutions have ensured “close involvement of their student and staff bodies” in their anti-harassment strategies – which suggests that one university didn’t.

It says that 79 per cent work with third-sector organisations as part of their strategic approaches, and 63 per cent collaborate with the police – implying that seven universities are doing little to ensure that perpetrators are actually brought to justice.

Back in 2019, only a third said they work with survivors and those with lived experience to inform their strategic approach to anti-harassment. That’s now 63 per cent – but still suggests that seven institutions don’t routinely seek to learn from those who’ve been through it.

And if 79 per cent of HEIs now have policies that allow for preventative suspension where this is necessary and appropriate, which does suggest that two institutions… don’t.

Apparently, just 63 per cent of institutions communicate behavioural expectations to students in pre-arrival information. That’s up from 46 per cent in 2019 – but still means that seven don’t.

And while Scotland is on close to 100 per cent for staff training and student bystander/consent training, there’s no figures on take up or efficacy.

Actually, to be fair, 37 per cent of institutions indicated they have commissioned research to understand the effectiveness of approaches taken. That means it’s implied that 12 have just thrown effort against the wall without checking to see what sticks  – although the report says that that:

…may be a reflection of the way the question was framed, which may have been understood to mean research in the academic sense, rather than evaluation.

Three institutions still aren’t giving reporting students information about the outcome of misconduct cases, seven haven’t run any training for in-house investigators since 2019, and eight aren’t even collecting data centrally.

There’s a few ways you can look at the data that Universities Scotland has collected. If you’re in a position to choose the university you attend in Scotland, the lack of easy to access public information on which institutions each of the requirements means you’re playing a bit of a lottery on measures which are fundamentally about quality and safety.

But the bigger question surrounds why applicants should be having to choose at all.

Optional or mandatory?

Most of the recommendations that were in the 2016 report have now been made mandatory across English universities. In theory, Scotland is saying – try your luck. In theory, England is saying – no need, safety is guaranteed universally here.

And crucially, the agenda has moved on since 2016. In England, for example, we’re about to get an outright ban on staff-student relationships, at least where there’s a potential for abuse of power.

All we know from this data is that 71 per cent of institutions have “updated their policies” on the issue – but that could mean that all 19 are still permitting staff to hit on students despite “discouraging” them from doing so.

Missing altogether is any national or local work on understanding prevalence – and so even if we were to take the figures at face value, the problems the work is designed to solve could be getting worse.

In England, the shift to mandatory on most of this stuff has been underpinned by the regulator’s research, which in lots of ways showed better progress than Universities Scotland is claiming.

Research commissioned by OfS concluded that:

…while progress is being made, self-regulation has not been sufficient to deliver consistent, effective approaches for students across the sector. Students are still not feeling appropriately supported by universities and colleges.

In the press release, Universities Scotland does say that wider public funding pressures in the higher education sector add pressures on this agenda – most (72 per cent) identified funding as a problem in regard to making further progress.

In England OfS says that providers “must” deploy the capacity and resources necessary to facilitate compliance with this condition:

• A provider with higher prevalence rates of harassment and/or sexual misconduct would be expected to ensure that it has more capacity, and to deploy more resources, to comply with this condition than a provider with lower prevalence rates.
• A provider may determine the approach it takes to ensuring it has the capacity and resources to comply with this condition, for example, by sharing services with other organisations and/or providers. Whatever approach a provider decides to take, it remains responsible for ensuring compliance with all of the provisions of this condition.

In the foreword, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills Jenny Gilruth says that she welcomes the progress report, and looks forward to continuing “this deeply important partnership approach”.

Either she’s blaming her own government for not funding or mandating more progress, or Gilruth really needs to reflect on why Scotland is about to become a significantly less robust than England in mitigating risks to students’ safety.