The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) opened a consultation in November 2025 to seek views on a new draft section of the Good Practice Framework: Handling reports of harassment and sexual misconduct.
This section of the Framework sets out guidance for providers in designing and operating procedures to respond to reports about harassment of any kind, and sexual misconduct.
The guidance covers:
- Good practice when receiving, investigating and responding to reports about harassment and/or sexual misconduct.
- Disciplinary procedures for dealing with students accused of harassment and/or sexual misconduct.
The consultation ran from 27 November 2025 to 6 February 2026. OIA plan to publish the final updated version of the section in 2026.
Our response
We welcome the OIA's commitment to improving sector-wide approaches to handling reports of harassment and sexual misconduct and support the intent of the new Framework. However, the draft section appears to be designed primarily for traditional universities and does not fully reflect the operational realities of small and specialist providers.
We recommend changes to the Framework which would make it more proportionate and more reflective of the diversity of the higher education sector, including stronger recognition of specialist learning environments, and more explicit expectations of awarding and validating partners.
We also recommend changes to strengthen the clarity and usability of the Framework so it can better support all providers to deliver safe, fair and trauma-informed processes for students reporting incidents of harassment and sexual misconduct.
Read our full response using the download link below.