Meeting OfS Condition E6 and the Employment Rights Act 2025: The Dual Compliance Challenge for Universities
Universities are facing a new era of regulatory scrutiny. With the Office for Students introduction of Condition E6 and the UK government implementing the Employment Rights Act 2025, higher education institutions now carry two parallel sets of duties relating to harassment, misconduct, freedom of speech, and staff capability. These requirements overlap, but they are not identical. Together, they reshape what good practice looks like for investigations, disclosures, disciplinary decision making, and campus culture.
Here is what each regulation expects, why the dual compliance challenge matters, and how we support universities to meet both obligations confidently and consistently.
What does OfS Condition E6 require?
Condition E6, fully in force since 1 August 2025, is designed to ensure universities respond to harassment and sexual misconduct in ways that are competent, fair, and evidence based. At its heart is the requirement to maintain and publish a single comprehensive source of information setting out policies and procedures on harassment and sexual misconduct. This must meet minimum content requirements, be genuinely accessible without barriers such as login requirements, and providers must be transparent about any changes made to it.
Providers must set out and take multiple steps that could make a significant and credible difference in protecting students, tailored to their own risks and student population. The scope covers both staff-to-student and student-to-student conduct, and the OfS is clear that addressing harassment of students by people who are neither staff nor students is consistent with compliance. In practice, this is what those steps look like.
1. Specialist training for key staff
Staff who receive disclosures, conduct investigations, and make decisions in disciplinary cases need to be equipped to do so competently. This training needs to be role-specific, competency-based, and regularly refreshed. It also needs to be evaluated for effectiveness, not simply delivered. Institutions that cannot show their people are competent in these roles will struggle to demonstrate they are taking steps that make a significant and credible difference.
2. Training for all students
Students need to be appropriately informed so that they understand what behaviour may constitute harassment or sexual misconduct, what the institution expects of them, and what to do if they experience or witness it.
3. Bystander or witness training
Bystander or witness training equips participants to recognise harmful behaviours, intervene safely, understand reporting routes, and support peers who disclose concerns. It is now expected practice across the sector and one of the most effective steps institutions can take. That expectation is reinforced on the employer side: the EHRC's guidance on the Employment Rights Act duty explicitly references training staff and managers on being an active bystander among the steps expected of employers.
4. Freedom of speech principles
Condition E6 requires universities to have particular regard to freedom of speech and academic freedom, and not to take steps that interfere with lawful expression unless proportionate to do so. Staff must understand how to balance safety with lawful expression, when speech is protected, when behaviour crosses into harassment or misconduct, and how to apply consistent thresholds.
5. Evidence-based evaluation
Training and processes need to be evaluated using evidence, not anecdote. That means being able to show impact, behavioural change, improved confidence in reporting, and consistency in decision making. This moves institutions away from tick-box training and towards measurable outcomes.
Since 1 September 2024, providers have not been able to use non-disclosure agreements in relation to student harassment or sexual misconduct allegations. The OfS monitors compliance on a risk-based basis and has investigatory and enforcement powers where needed.
What does the Employment Rights Act 2025 add for higher education as an employer?
While Condition E6 focuses on student safety and misconduct, the Employment Rights Act 2025 focuses on workplace harassment and employer duties. For universities, this means the following.
1. Mandatory prevention of sexual and third party harassment
From October 2026, higher education institutions must take ALL reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff, a higher bar than the previous duty. The Act also introduces a third party harassment duty covering all nine protected characteristics, which for universities means harassment of staff by students, visitors, or contractors falls squarely within scope. This requires proactive training, clear policies, and demonstrable prevention measures.
2. Stronger employer liability
Universities can now be held liable if they fail to prevent harassment, even where the perpetrator is not an employee. This is particularly relevant for student and staff interactions, public-facing roles, and clinical, fieldwork, and placement environments.
3. Training as a legal defence
Training is no longer nice to have. Under the Act, effective, evidence-based training is a core component of demonstrating ALL reasonable steps. The EHRC's guidance places significant weight on risk assessment, stating that employers are unlikely to be able to comply without carrying one out. Tribunals can increase compensation awards by up to 25% where the duty is breached.
4. Consistency across HR, conduct, and safety systems
The Act requires alignment across HR investigations, student disciplinary processes, safety and wellbeing teams, and line management practices. This is where the dual compliance challenge becomes most visible.
There is a further parallel worth noting. Just as E6 prohibits NDAs in student harassment cases, the ERA 2025 renders void any clause attempting to prevent a worker disclosing sexual harassment.
Why is dual compliance a challenge for universities?
Universities must now satisfy the OfS as regulator, alongside the legal duties introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025, with overlapping but distinct expectations.
1. Different audiences, same standards
Condition E6 focuses on student-related misconduct. The Employment Rights Act focuses on staff-related harassment. But both require specialist training, competent investigations, fair and consistent decision making, and evidence of impact.
2. Shared risk areas
Many situations involve both staff and students, including laboratories, fieldwork, placements, studios and workshops, residential life, and students' unions. Universities must ensure both regulatory frameworks are applied coherently.
3. Avoiding conflicting thresholds
If staff disciplinary processes use one threshold for harassment and student processes use another, institutions risk inconsistency, legal challenge, regulatory scrutiny, and loss of confidence from students and staff.
4. Training must be integrated, not fragmented
Delivering separate training for HR, student conduct, academic staff, professional services, security, and residential teams without a shared framework creates risk. Regulators expect joined-up systems.
How do we support universities to meet both requirements?
We specialise in helping universities build coherent, compliant, and confidence-building systems that address both Condition E6 and the Employment Rights Act 2025. Here is how we support you.
1. Specialist training for disclosures, investigations, and decision making
We deliver modular, scenario-based training that equips staff to receive disclosures safely and lawfully, conduct trauma-informed and fair investigations, apply consistent thresholds, make defensible decisions, and document evidence clearly. Our programmes are designed around the competency expectations of Condition E6 and the ALL reasonable steps standard of the Employment Rights Act.
2. Bystander or witness intervention training
We design engaging, accessible bystander and witness training tailored to students, academic staff, professional services, and residential and campus life teams. This includes neurodiversity-sensitive formats and real-world campus scenarios.
3. Freedom of speech and academic freedom modules
We help institutions embed freedom of speech principles into conduct training, decision-making frameworks, case studies, and policy interpretation. This ensures staff understand how to balance lawful expression with safety obligations.
4. Evidence-based evaluation frameworks
We build evaluation systems that demonstrate behavioural change, increased confidence in reporting, improved consistency, reduced risk, and regulatory compliance. This includes surveys, behavioural indicators, competency assessments, and impact reporting.
5. Integrated compliance frameworks
We help universities create a single, coherent framework that addresses both regulators by aligning HR processes, student conduct systems, safety and wellbeing teams, academic governance, and campus operations. This reduces duplication, increases confidence, and strengthens institutional resilience.
Final thoughts
Condition E6 and the Employment Rights Act 2025 represent a significant shift in expectations for universities. Compliance is no longer about policies on paper. It is about competence, consistency, and evidence. Universities that invest in integrated training and evaluation now will be better protected, more confident, and more trusted by students and staff.
We are here to support you every step of the way. Find out more about our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion training and our Interim, Ongoing, and Charter Support services.
Get in touch to discuss how we can support your institution to meet both sets of duties with confidence.
