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<p>The department does not collect information on the number of sexual offences committed
on university campuses. The responsibility for this, and for meeting legal obligations,
lies with individual higher education (HE) providers.</p><p> </p><p>The government
expects HE providers to keep records of incidents disclosed to them and act swiftly
to investigate and address them. It is important to recognise that under-reporting
is common and HE providers should continue to break down barriers to reporting by
ensuring that students and staff feel safe and are able to disclose sexual misconduct.</p><p>
</p><p>The government takes all forms of sexual harassment extremely seriously. Therefore,
the government is working closely with Universities UK (UUK) and the Office for Students
(OfS) to support work to address sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination
in HE institutions. This includes implementation of the UUK’s sexual violence and
harassment taskforce’s recommendations on handling of reports and disclosures, as
well as enabling accurate data to be captured to determine the scale of the problem
and track year on-year trends.</p><p> </p><p>The government expects HE providers to
take these recommendations seriously. Furthermore, the government has tasked the OfS
to support this work. The OfS have invested £2.45 million in projects tackling sexual
harassment, including supporting the development and improvement of reporting procedures.</p>
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