The government is set to launch a consultation, reviewing the current diversity and inclusion laws in place in the UK. In light of movements such as #MeToo, and greater awareness surrounding workplace harassment, one of the areas which will be consulted on is sexual harassment in the work environment. In July 2018, the women and equalities committee called for new laws to protect workers from sexual harassment, and suggested that the current legislation doesn’t go far enough, and so the government’s promise to launch a consultation has been welcomed by groups such as this one. The consultation will mainly focus on whether employers should have more of a legal duty to prevent sexual harassment. 

The consultation will look at four main areas concerning current workplace sexual harassment law, and will give recommendations according to their findings. The report will look at the following areas and ask the following questions: 

Should employers have a mandatory duty to protect employees from harassment and victimisation? 

The women and equalities commission suggested that employers should have a legal duty to protect employees, and should face sanctions if they fail to comply with the code. Under current law, employers can be legally held responsible if one of their employees is subjected to harassment by a colleague, and it can be proven that the employer did not take sufficient action to prevent the harassment from taking place. This consultation will go a step further, and look to ‘nip the problem in the bud’ and ask if employers should have a mandatory duty to prevent such victimisation.

How can legislation be strengthened regarding third-party harassment? 

Third party harassment refers to when employers suffer harassment by clients or visitors, for instance. Currently, employers do have a legal responsibility and duty to protect their employees, in particular in cases where the harassment has taken place on more than one occasion, the employer was aware of the harassment taking place, and where the employer is judged to have not taken ‘reasonable’ steps to prevent harassment from happening. 

There have been very few tribunal cases regarding third-party harassment, and as such, the consultation will aim to strengthen the legislation regarding such matters. 

Should the law be extended to include protecting volunteers, and what’s the best way to further protect interns? 

Changes to the legislation to include volunteers would mean that charities could be liable to be taken to tribunals. However, this brings about another question regarding the notion of ‘volunteering’ and its distinction from being an ‘employee’, as Shaun Delaney notes in his blog post. There are currently around 20 million volunteers in the UK, but charitable organisations vary hugely. For instance, many charitable organisations are often entirely led and managed by volunteers themselves, so who exactly would be ‘held accountable’? Also if, as proposed, there’s a distinction between two legal categories of volunteering (one for ‘larger organisations’, where there are people in formal roles who could be held accountable, and one for smaller charities), does this not go some way in creating confusion and devaluing volunteers who work for smaller charities? It could also create an environment whereby charities don’t want to ‘promote’ volunteers to be in more formal roles for fear of facing a tribunal, should a case arise. Ultimately, in this case, there really is a lot that needs to be considered, in order to protect our charity community. 

In terms of interns, there is a question surrounding the rights of interns, in particular in cases of sexual harassment. An unpaid intern lacks protection from legislation, as they don’t have the same rights as a paid employee. In the current law, an ‘employment service-provider’ isn’t allowed to harass a person undergoing ‘vocational training’, including work experience. However, it’s worth noting that it would be more difficult for an intern to pursue a case than it would for a paid employee. As such, this consultation will revisit the legislation and find how best interns can be protected.

Should there be an ‘extension of limitation period’ from three months to six months for bringing equality act claims to light? 

Under current law, claims for an employment tribunal must be made within three months minus one day from the date of the first acts which you wish to make a complaint about. For ongoing cases of harassment, for instance, this time limit can change, but it’s based on a case-by-case basis, if the tribunal judge it to be ‘just’ to extend the time limit. However, three months is a relatively short period of time, and whilst the advice is to raise the issue as soon as possible, sometimes employees need time to think about whether they want to take their employer to a tribunal or not. Therefore, the consultation will look at whether the limitation period should be extended. 

Pride in People is an HR consultancy firm based in Cheshire which can help with all areas of diversity and inclusion law, including producing handbooks. Call or email today to find out more. 

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