Kifinfo, the news site of Norway’s Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research, recently published an article on how universities handle reports of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Kristian Solaas, the equality advisor at the University of Agder, describes his ideal outcome: success means no whistleblowing cases reaching his desk, not because they have been swept under the carpet, but because nothing happened in the first place. When a case does arrive, he says, “there are no winners”.
We have a lot of sympathy for this. Prevention should always be the goal, and anyone who has supported people through these processes knows how much they cost both parties, whatever the outcome. But the figures in the same article show why we need to be careful about how we measure success, because very low numbers can mean two very different things.
The gap between experience and reporting
In Norway’s most recent sector-wide working environment survey, around 2,000 university staff (8 per cent of respondents) said they had experienced unacceptable behaviour in the previous six months; harassment, discrimination, and bullying made up most of it. Fewer than half of them reported it through any formal channel. At Agder itself, 101 staff members described unacceptable behaviour in the survey, while the university’s notification council handled nine formal cases that year. The article also notes that when people do come forward, it is often years after the events, and usually at the point where the situation has become unbearable.
None of this will surprise UK practitioners. Every climate survey we have seen, whether of students or staff, tells a similar story: the number of people who experience harassment, hate, or sexual misconduct is many times larger than the number who ever make a formal report. The Norwegian data is useful because it puts both numbers side by side, in the same institutions, in the same year.
The danger of reading low numbers as good news
Low case numbers are ambiguous. They might mean your prevention work is succeeding. They might equally mean that people do not know how to report, do not trust the process, or have quietly decided that the personal cost of coming forward is too high. You cannot tell which from the case numbers alone, and this is where well-intentioned framing becomes risky. If success is defined as an absence of cases, a fall in reports looks like progress even when it reflects a loss of trust.
The institutional risk is real. Low numbers are easily read as reassurance in annual reports and governing body papers. For providers in England, condition E6 asks for credible arrangements to protect students from harassment and sexual misconduct; a low report count is not evidence that harm is not happening. In Wales, MEDR’s welfare condition asks for honest self-evaluation, and a self-evaluation built on formal case numbers alone will miss most of the picture.
If your prevalence data and your reporting data tell very different stories, that gap matters more than either number on its own. It is telling you something important about trust in your processes.
Why people stay silent
The reasons given in the Norwegian article will be familiar. People do not have the energy for a formal process. They doubt that what happened was serious enough. They fear being labelled a troublemaker, and they worry about the consequences for their career, especially where the person causing harm has power over their grades, references, funding, or contract. And people talk to each other; one badly handled disclosure can undo years of careful policy work.
What actually helps?
Treat the gap as the number to watch. Measure prevalence through climate surveys and compare it with your formal reporting data. A narrowing gap suggests trust is growing; a widening one tells you something is wrong, whatever the raw numbers say.
Make routes visible, repeatedly. Agder briefs every new employee on its reporting system, which is more than many institutions manage, but people forget. Awareness work has to be ongoing, not a slide in induction week.
Be honest about anonymity. Anonymous routes lower the threshold for disclosure, and they also limit what a fair process can do with the information, because a respondent needs specifics to respond to. Both things are true, and your community deserves a clear explanation of that trade-off rather than a vague promise.
Get the first response right. Most disclosures start informally, often with a personal tutor or line manager. Whether the person goes any further depends largely on how that first conversation goes. Those staff need training and support; they are your reporting system, whether or not your policy says so.
Run processes that merit trust. A trauma-informed process is not a ‘softer’ or less rigorous process; it is one of the ways you can obtain reliable accounts without causing further harm. And procedural fairness protects everyone, reporting party and respondent alike. People will only use a system they believe will treat them (and others) fairly.
Report back to your community, in aggregate, on what reports led to. If people can see that coming forward changes things, they are far more likely to do it.
What success actually looks like
We understand the appeal of hoping for a year with no cases. But for the foreseeable future, in most institutions, rising report numbers are more likely to be a sign of growing trust than of growing harm; it is worth saying this to your governing body now before your numbers change. Real success is when your survey data and your reporting data tell the same story.
We’re developing training offerings around prevention, risk, safeguarding, and a session for senior leaders on the importance of a purposeful and joined up approach.
If you would like support with any of this, from policy review to trauma-informed training for investigators and first responders, you can reach us at info@campusresolve.co.uk.