Reports

Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on amendments to Special Ordinance D (v) concerning precautionary action

The Council and the General Board beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. In 2016–17, two new student procedures were adopted, one enabling immediate precautionary action to be taken whilst an investigation was ongoing, and the other concerning the handling of cases following a report of harassment or sexual misconduct (Reporter, 6452, 2016–17, p. 326). Following a review of the cases that have arisen in the last year, a small number of minor changes have been suggested to improve the accessibility and administration of the procedures. The changes to the procedure concerning cases of student harassment and sexual misconduct that have been approved by the Council are set out in the Notice on p. 841. This Report puts forward proposed amendments to the Special Ordinance concerning precautionary action.

2. The review took account of comments from those who have been involved in cases relating to sexual misconduct. The recommendations have the support of the Council, the General Board, the General Board’s Education Committee, the Senior Tutors’ Committee, the Welfare and Finance Committee, and the Health and Wellbeing Committee.

3. The Council and the General Board have accepted the recommendations of the review, which proposed changes to address the following points:

(i)the current risk assessment process could be improved in some cases by requiring the student to undergo an assessment conducted by a person with relevant expert knowledge;

(ii)there might be occasions when it was appropriate to take precautionary action during a formal investigation by a College, as well as during a formal investigation by the University or the police.

4. The Council and the General Board recommend that in Special Ordinance D (v) (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 98):

(i) Section 1(b) be amended to read as follows:

(b)to protect any person while any matter is being dealt with under a procedure in the University, or in a College at the request or with the support of the College concerned, or as part of a criminal process;

(ii) New Section 4 be inserted as follows and the remaining sections renumbered:

    4. In considering whether any precautionary measures are necessary under Section 1, the Academic Secretary may seek medical or other expert advice and may require the person to attend an assessment for the purpose of obtaining that advice.

23 July 2018	Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor	Jennifer Hirst	Susan Oosthuizen
	Ross Anderson	Nicholas Holmes	Sofia Ropek-Hewson
	Stephen J. Cowley	Alice Hutchings	John Shakeshaft
	Nicholas Gay	Fiona Karet	Sara Weller
	David Greenaway	Jeremy Morris

11 July 2018	Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor	Matthew Kite	Sofia Ropek-Hewson
	Philip Allmendinger	Patrick Maxwell	Helen Thompson
	Abigail Fowden	Martin Millett	Graham Virgo
	A. L. Greer	Richard Prager	Mark Wormald
	Nicholas Holmes	Susan Rankin