Report a serious equalities incident: service for staff

Use this service to report any serious equalities incidents which occur in your educational or youth setting. These could be between students, between staff, or (in rare cases) between staff and students. 

Select a section below to find out in more detail about this service.

When to use this service

This service is not designed to log all types of incidents in your setting. Only incidents or harassment which are persistent, deliberate, and based on hate or prejudice around certain characteristics, qualify as serious equalities incidents. As a team, it's at your discretion which incidents you choose to deal with internally, and which you feel you should report to us. Use the guidelines below to identify incidents which we would like you to report to us.

The basis of the incident

The Equality Act defines a number of 'protected characteristics' which might form the basis of prejudice or victimisation between children or young people, as follows:

• Ethnicity or race
• Sex
• Disability
• Religion or beliefs
• Sexual orientation
• Gender reassignment

If the incident is based on prejudice about one or more of these characteristics, or the belief that the victim has the characteristic, we'd like to know about it. We are also monitoring serious incidents on the basis of social deprivation, being a young carer, or care experienced. 

The character of the incident

We would like you to report the incident if it:

• appears to be motivated out of a deliberate attempt to cause hurt or distress to an individual or group
• appears to be motivated out of a general prejudice or hatred of a group of people, based upon a protected characteristic, even when there is no obvious individual ‘target.’ For example, racist language or terminology being used within an all-white group
• has had an impact upon an individual or group of people (even where you think this may not have been deliberate) 
• is not an isolated incident, but has happened before or is part of a wider pattern of behaviour or culture within the setting where you work
• the person (or people) responsible has continued to behave in an unacceptable manner, or use unacceptable terminology, in spite of being asked not to do so

Why it's important to report incidents

By completing this form promptly for any appropriate incident, you can:

• Support people involved in the incident

  • by referring you to guidance on how to support victims, people responsible, bystanders and others affected by the incident
  • by helping us to supply, or refer you to, appropriate support if necessary

• Support your work and your setting

  • by creating a template for you to record the details of incidents and how you manage them
  • by helping to put systems in place to support particularly vulnerable groups, raise awareness and reduce incidents
  • by demonstrating your work on important areas considered by Ofsted during inspections (such as your setting's support of students' safety, behaviour and attitudes, and providing context for other measures, such as the number and type of school exclusions)

• Help us, as your local authority

  • by enabling us to meet our safeguarding duties and statutory responsibilities, as set out in the Equality Act 2010
  • by helping us to monitor the nature and frequency of incidents in our area, so we can plan support resources, at a strategic level

What we will, and won't, ask about

The Serious Equalities Incident Reporting Form (SEIRF) is not designed to assess or judge individual settings, staff or students, either for the frequency and nature of incidents, or how you manage them. Our aim is to build up a more general picture of the frequency and nature of equalities-related incidents in our area. So we'll only ask you more general questions about things like: 

• The type, size and general location of your school or youth setting
• The type of incident 
• Whether the incident forms a more general pattern, or is a 'repeat offence' from the same person responsible
• The types of steps taken to support the victim of the incident, and address the behaviour of the person responsible

We do not request personal information which identifies the victim, perpetrator or other people affected by the incident. Instead, we record aspects of the incident and the people involved.

We won't ask in detail how you handled the situation, or the particular measures taken. Instead, we ask for a subjective assessment of how the person or people affected by the incident feel(s) about the issue. 

We will ask you for your contact details, but only so we can update you or offer help.

What we'll do with the information

The information you provide will help us to get a better understanding of the nature and scale of hate- and prejudice-based incidents in the area, as well as the issues that young people, and those who work with them, are facing. This information will enable us to work in partnership with educational and youth settings and local services to effectively respond to prejudice-based incidents, identify where training would be useful, and better support children and young people in your care, as well as your staff.

Make your report

Other courses of action

Depending on the nature and impact of the incident, you may want to use other services. 

If you think a crime has been committed

Where the equalities incident constitutes a criminal offence (such as violence or threats, harassment or stalking), the police would consider this a hate crime. Visit our Hate crime webpage to help you to decide if a crime has been committed.

If the incident appears to be criminal, you should report it directly to the police as soon as possible.

You may also want to find out more about our Youth Justice team, and the help or training they can offer. 

If a child or young person in your care wants to report discrimination

Children and young people (aged up to 19) can report an incident of discrimination (RID) using our anonymous online service.

If you have a safeguarding or welfare concern about a child

Incidents may reveal previously hidden information about the circumstances of children or young people that you work with. If the incident raises any doubts about their general safety or welfare, please report this immediately to us.

You may also want to find out more about mental health guidance and support for children and young people in our area, via our Livewell service directory.