I would like to be provided with the following information regarding third-party sexual harassment. The definition of third-party sexual harassment is when a staff member is harassed by a member of the public. In this instance, it would mean a social worker experiencing sexual harassment from an individual they are supporting. The harassment can constitute inappropriate language, inappropriate touching, unwanted sexual advances, and sharing or sending of lewd images on social media.

1. Can you confirm how many reports of third-party sexual harassment your local authority has received from social workers directly employed by your local authority between 31 October 2013 and 31 October 2021.
Only one near miss incident was reported directly during the period 31 October 2013 and 31 October 2021. No other reports were logged directly by social care during this time. It is possible that social care workers could have recorded minor concerns on the client records system, the only place this would be recorded would be on individual clients case notes but that cannot be extracted other than by manually searching every single case record, which would be both time and cost prohibitive.

2. Does your local authority have a policy to manage third-party sexual harassment?
Wokingham Borough Council has a Violence at Work Policy which encompasses any physical, psychological, verbal and/or sexual harassment.

3. If your local authority has a policy on third-party sexual harassment, what were the outcomes of any complaints made to you by staff members? If it does not push the request over the cost limit please provide a summary of the allegation (such as inappropriate touching, inappropriate messages or rape) and the outcome, including what disciplinary action, if any, was taken. Additionally, if it does not push the request over the cost limit, please provide the race and gender of both the person making the allegation and who the allegation was against.
As this was a near miss and no direct physical or verbal action was taken by the client at the time, the near miss incident was reported and an internal investigation took place in order to identify hazards, which were subsequently recorded and risk assessments completed for future visits to the home both by workers and carers.