Management Information Sheet
Reporting Prejudice Related Incidents
Norfolk County Council currently collects schools data in respect of prejudice related incidents and this information has been valuable in informing policy and practice within the LA and appropriate support to schools and educational settings.
For the academic year 2017/18 we will be moving to an annual reporting model. This will replace the current process of reporting individual incidents online. Therefore, there will no longer be any need to submit individual reports during the year.
Schools and setting will be asked to complete an annual return in the summer term which will provide us with an overview of incidents within the LA. You will be asked to report on all incidents relating to protected characteristics as detailed in the Equality Act 2010.
The protected characteristics are:
- Race (ethnicity)
- Sex (gender)
- Disability
- Religion or belief
- Sexual orientation
- Gender reassignment
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Marriage*
- Age*
*These refer to staff but not pupils
Although the Local Authority will be collecting this information annually, it is important that you continue to keep a contemporaneous record and have a clear school/setting process
Recording prejudice related incidents
Recording racist incidents was a recommendation of the 1999 MacPherson Report of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. In addition to in-school reporting procedures, sharing the data with the Local Authority allows the identification of patterns and contributes to the monitoring of the effectiveness of countywide strategy and training and the development of models of best practice.
The analysis of this data evidences how schools, settings and the Local Authority:
- Foster good relations
- Advance equality of opportunity
- Eliminate discrimination
These are requirements of the Equality Act
How to decide if it is a prejudice related incident or bullying
A prejudiced-related incident is any incident which is perceived by the victim, or any other person, to be prejudiced towards an individual, due to one or more of the protected characteristics.
Bullying is behaviour by an individual or group, repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally. Three characteristics of bullying are:
- Deliberately hurtful (including aggression)
- Repeated often over a period of time
- Difficult for the victim to defend themselves against
Bullying may be because of a protected characteristic but this is not always the case.
A prejudice related incident may not be bullying. Bullying related to a protected characteristic would always be a prejudice related incident.