FAQs

Your report will be read by a trained adviser. What happens next depends on whether you have submitted a report with your contact details or submitted an anonymous report:

 

If you submit a report and give your contact details, an adviser will contact you within 3 working days to check how you are and arrange to meet with you to discuss the options and support that are available to you. Further options available to you might include informal advice; putting together a safety plan; further investigations by the Student Casework team; arranging support; or information on reporting to an external authority such as the Police or other support/ health services. If, after talking the situation over, you decide you wish to speak to the Police, we can also support you to do this.  
 

If you submit an anonymous report, we will not be able to contact you to ask for further information or offer you support. However, we will use this information for trend analysis and informing proactive prevention. Anonymous reports can help to provide information on issues arising within a particular part of the University (for example, in a specific academic unit or service), or across the University as a whole. In these instances, we might make informal enquiries into the issues identified in the report in an attempt to resolve them.

 

The University of Winchester does not know who has made an anonymous report, and therefore cannot contact you to provide support. If you report with contact details, an adviser can arrange to offer you support and help you to consider informal or formal options to address a concern.

I really need help now- what can I do? 

If you are in a dangerous situation, please call 999 immediately.
You can also call University security if on campus on 01962 827666

Who can make a report?

University of Winchester students and staff can make a report through Report + Support. Visitors are encouraged to report complaints through the public complaints process.

 

Usually, contact will only be made with the person you are reporting once you have made a decision to proceed with an investigation, if appropriate for your circumstances. However, under our duty of care to our staff and students, there are some circumstances in which we may need to investigate or make an external report even if there is no consent given. You can read more about this here.

A few of us have all been affected by the same incident. Do we all need to submit reports?
No, there is no need for all people who have been affected to submit reports separately. It is fine for one person to submit a report on behalf of the group. If appropriate, the whole group can then meet with an adviser to discuss what has happened and what options and support are available.

Making a report is just a first step and does not initiate a formal complaints process - the choice for this will always remain with you and your adviser can talk you through your options. Usually, we will not start an investigation until we have met with you to find out more about what has happened. If it is felt that an investigation is appropriate for your situation, we will talk you through the process so that you can decide if you wish to proceed.

Under our duty of care to our staff and students, there are some circumstances in which we may need to investigate or make an external report even if there is no consent given. You can read more about this here.

 

The University does not have the legal powers that the Police have and we are more limited in what we can do (for example, we cannot detain anyone or gather forensic evidence), but we will investigate complaints about sexual violence and any other form of abuse against a student where we are able to. This process will often not start until a Police investigation has concluded. This is so the University does not compromise the Police investigation. 

However, we can take precautionary action in the meantime. If you submit a complaint against a named member of the University community, we will complete a risk assessment and put actions in place to mitigate risk. This action does not mean that a complaint has been upheld, but means that the University has taken action to reduce the risk to you and the University community, based on the information currently available. The safety and wellbeing of all our students is our key priority. 

 

Yes. you can report something, even if it happened off campus.  Report + Support is available to all staff and students who have experienced sexual misconduct, discrimination, harassment, bullying and/or hate crime. Support is available regardless of where the incident happened.

You do not have to meet someone in person. We can communicate with you through Microsoft Teams or by email if you prefer.  If you do wish to meet in person, we will arrange a mutually convenient time and place and you can elect to bring someone with you for support. 

 

You can speak to the Student Union or Student Life Advice. Both can talk you through the process and provide support.

 

You can speak to the Student Union or Student Life Advice.

There are also a range of external organisations who you can contact for support. There are more details on the Support pages.

 

Yes, you can bring another student or a staff member to a meeting to support you. It would be best not to bring someone who you might ask to provide a witness statement at a later date. You can check with your adviser if you have any questions about this.

You can stop the process at any time subject to the University's risk assessment of the situation. Please keep in contact with the team and we will offer you ongoing support should you wish this.

I have copies of messages and emails that show what happened. Can I send these to you?
Yes, you can upload files such as photos and screenshots of messages that help to show what happened when you submit a report. Please do not upload images of a graphic, sexual or offensive nature. If we need to see these, we will contact you later to advise further.
If you have file types that cannot be uploaded (such as pdf), you will be able to email them to your adviser at a later date.

The report will be only be accessed by relevant staff members who have permission to access it in order to provide you with support. Reports are shared on a 'need-to-know' basis.

However, if the report discloses information which suggests that the safety of you or another individual is at imminent risk, the University may need to take immediate action. You can read more about this here.
 
We will not share your report with your faculty, department, or supervisor unless you ask us to do so on your behalf. 

No, the report is confidential and separate to your student record.
 
Would you share the report with a funding body that supports me? 

No, we would not communicate with any external funding bodies or sponsors.

If you investigate my report, who will find out what the outcome is?
The outcome of an investigation is only shared with the person making the report and the person who has been reported. Depending on the circumstances, occasionally other members of staff may be informed that an allegation has been upheld. For example, the academic Head of Department of the student who has been reported, or relevant members of the Housing or Security teams. No other details of the report or investigation would be shared unless absolutely necessary. People who have provided a witness statement do not find out the outcome.

If you investigate my report and the allegations made against the other person are upheld, what are the possible sanctions?
Sanctions are decided on a case by case basis depending on the specific circumstances. Possible sanctions are listed in the Disciplinary Procedures for Students which you can read here. 
 
 If I name someone in the report, will they be told that I have done this? 

We would not take any further action without discussing it with you first (except in some circumstances which you can read about here). However, if a formal investigation is launched under Disciplinary Procedures for Students or Staff Disciplinary Procedures, the individuals cited would be informed and would be given a chance to respond. 

 

If you submit a report with your contact details, your report will be assigned to a trained adviser. The adviser will be from the most appropriate team, for example, Human Resources, Student Support and Success or Student Casework. 

 
Each adviser can only access cases that are assigned to them. The adviser receives an email notification that a case has been assigned to them. No identifiable information is provided within this email alert. The adviser logs into Report + Support to access information provided using their personal login details. The adviser then makes contact with the person who has made the report and they arrange a meeting to discuss the report. 

 

A report that is found to be malicious or vexatious will be addressed under existing student and staff procedures.

 

Report + Support is an online tool developed by Culture Shift where staff and students can report issues of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct either anonymously or by providing contact details so that an adviser can contact them to discuss further. Report + Support is also home to information about internal and external support, policies and procedures. 

 
When I submit a report, how is my personal data stored? 

Please see our privacy policy here

Data held on Report + Support is GDPR compliant and further information about how data is collected and stored is outlined in the Privacy Notice. The system has been security tested by both the developer, Culture Shift, and by the University of Winchester.  

 

We will only retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil purposes we collected it for. We will keep records of reports as outlined in the Privacy Notice. All personal data will be kept according to the Records Retention Schedule.

What do you do with the information gathered from anonymous reports?

The University will review all reported information regularly and the University will work with areas identified to address any concerning trends.  An environmental investigation to determine whether there are risks that require more formal actions may be undertaken in an appropriate case. The terms of reference of any environmental investigation will be agreed with the relevant department or faculty. Information provided within anonymous reports will be used as statistical data to understand what is happening and to inform proactive prevention work. 

 

The data collected from Report + Support is used to produce anonymised annual reports. These reports include information such as number of cases, most reported types of harassment and location. No personal data or identifying information is shared. This data is considered at committees including the Equality and Diversity Committee, the Student Experience Excellence Group and at Board level.