FOI request (FOIR-524482856)

Sexual harassment

Requested Fri 16 June 2023
Responded Fri 23 June 2023

This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

For the purposes of this FOI, I define 'third parties' as a person who is not council staff, including service users, members of the public or contractors' staff.

Sexual harassment is defined in law in the Equality Act 2010 as 'unwanted conduct [related to a person's sex] which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual'. Sexual harassment includes, but is not limited to sexual assault, requests for sexual encounters and favours, sharing sexual images.

If you categorise incidents of sexual harassment in other ways, including sexual misconduct, sexual assault or rape, please include these cases too for the questions below.

All questions require information regarding the last five financial years: 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/2022, 2022/23.

Please note there are nine parts to my request.

1. Over the past five years, how many incidents of sexual harassment allegedly perpetrated by council staff against colleagues has the council recorded? Please share a breakdown by gender for both claimant and alleged perpetrator.

2. Please share the nature of the allegations. For example, indecent exposure, sexual assault, sexual jokes.

3. Of the above cases in (1), how many staff have been formally disciplined for sexual harassment?

4. Over the past five years, how many incidents of sexual harassment allegedly perpetrated by council employees against third parties has the council recorded? Please share a breakdown by gender.

5. Please share the nature of the allegations. For example, indecent exposure, sexual assault, sexual jokes.

6. Of the above cases in (4), how many staff have been formally disciplined for sexual harassment against third parties?

7a. Over the past five years, how many staff have been suspended over allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual misconduct?

7b. Please provide a total figure of how much the Council has spent on wages during their (the staff referred to in (7a)) suspension.

8. Please share the number and cost of claims closed/settled with damages paid in the last five years in relation to sexual harassment. Please include the following information in the table:

a. Number of claims

b. Damages paid

c. Defence costs paid

d. Claimant costs paid

e. Total paid

f. Breakdown by year (year of closure or settlement year)

g. Breakdown by claimant type (staff or third party)

9. I define non-disclosure agreements as a contract through which the parties agree not to disclose information covered by the agreement. Over the past five years, has the council issued a non-disclosure agreement to resolve a sexual harassment case? If so, how many non-disclosure agreements were to resolve sexual harassment cases?

Response

There have been no sexual harassment cases/incidents over the period requested. Therefore, our response to all questions is nil.