Harassment at work: what the new law means for early years providers

This is general information for providers in England. It is not legal advice. For a specific situation, take legal advice.

Notes:

• The following duties are about the people you employ. If your assistants are self-employed or, in a group setting, they come through an agency, the position might be different - you would need to check with ACAS.

• If you currently work alone with no employees, the duties are not aimed at you yet, but you should know about the changes.

• The government's implementation timeline confirms 30 October 2026 for both changes. Ministers also have the power to set out in regulations specific steps that count as reasonable, but there is no fixed checklist yet.

• Where an employment tribunal upholds a sexual harassment claim and finds that the employer breached its preventative duty, it can increase compensation by up to 25%.

• The sexual harassment duty concerns unwanted conduct of a sexual nature.

• The third-party duty covers harassment related to the protected characteristics, including sexual harassment, when it occurs in the course of employment.

On 30 October 2026, important changes to workplace harassment law came into force. If you employ assistants, nursery practitioners, a deputy or a cook, you must now take 'all reasonable steps' to prevent sexual harassment of your employees. You can also be held legally responsible if a third party harasses them while they are doing their job. In childcare, a third party is anyone who is not you or one of your employees: for example, parents, carers, grandparents, visiting professionals, delivery drivers and members of your own household if your setting is in your home.

Most early years settings will respond by updating one of their employment policies or maybe writing something new. That is a sensible start, but a policy will not protect your employees on its own and it will not protect you. A policy tells people what should happen - however, it does not tell you where things are likely to go wrong and it does not prove what you did to stop them.

The more useful approach is to treat harassment like any other hazard in your setting and risk assess. To do this, you will need to find where there might be a risk - for example, arrival and departure times, put controls in place, check that they are working and keep a record that you did. If, in the future, an employment tribunal asked what steps you had taken, what evidence could you show?

What has changed

Since October 2024, employers have had a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to take 'all reasonable steps' to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. From 30 October 2026 the Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthens that duty in two ways:

• 'Reasonable steps' becomes 'all reasonable steps': a small change, but it raises the bar. The question is whether you have taken every step that it would be reasonable to expect in the circumstances - it is whether you did everything you reasonably could to prevent sexual harassment happening.

• You must not permit a third party to harass your employees: you are treated as permitting it if the harassment happens during the employee's work and you failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it from happening.

The 'third party duty' uses the definition of harassment in section 26 of the Equality Act 2010. That covers unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristics - age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, as well as sexual harassment. Pregnancy and maternity, and marriage and civil partnership, are not included on the list - however, while these characteristics are not included in the statutory definition of harassment under section 26, other protections under the Equality Act may still apply. Sexual harassment is not limited to men harassing women. It can happen between people of any gender or sexuality, so your approach should not assume one pattern.

Why childcare settings carry real risk

Third party harassment is not spread evenly across workplaces. It concentrates where employees deal with the public, often under pressure and often alone - circumstances that describe much of childcare work, for example:

• They are often alone or unobserved: an assistant may be the only adult in a room, in a garden or on a school run or working in your home where there is no one available to step in.

• They deal with parents who pay the bills: it is hard for employees to challenge a parent who funds the setting and some owners might be uncontactable or reluctant to speak to the parent too.

• They refuse requests and deliver bad news: for example, an employee is asked to say no to a parent request, raise concerns about a child's behaviour, chase fees or report an incident or accident. Those are the moments when tempers might flare and comments could become personal.

• Contact happens outside the door: messages might arrive by phone, text, WhatsApp, social media and parent groups, often out of working hours.

• Your home is the workplace: if you are a childminder, partners, relatives and visitors who live in or come to your home are also considered third parties under the legislation.

• Some will find it harder to speak up: anyone who is young, new to the setting or in their first job might feel least able to raise a concern.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) lists many reasons why workers do not report this kind of behaviour. They include believing it is just part of the job, fearing blame and believing nothing will be done. In a small team where everyone knows everyone, those fears are stronger. A quiet setting with no complaints is not proof of a safe one.

Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to employees' health and safety. ACAS also identifies regularly assessing risks and taking action to address them as important steps in preventing third-party harassment.

Six steps to take now

• Assess the risk: walk through a typical week in your setting. Look at drop-off and pick-up, times when employees are alone, trips out, phone and message contact with parents and any events or social occasions. Include an overview of previous incidents, near misses and situations where employees have felt uncomfortable, even if they haven't made a formal complaint. Use what you already have, such as incident records, complaints and employee feedback. Note where power is unequal, where employees are isolated and where supervision is weak.

• Ask your employees: they will be able to tell you which situations are more likely to escalate and which parents are difficult. Ask them in a way that makes it safe to answer honestly.

• Change the work and not just the rulebook: controls might include:

  • Handover times so that no one is alone with a difficult parent.
  • Clear lone working arrangements.
  • Written standards of behaviour for parents in your contract, handbook or welcome pack, with a plain statement of what happens if they are broken.
  • One agreed channel for parent messages, with times when employees are not expected to reply.
  • Clear authority for employees to end an abusive conversation and pass it to you.
  • Agreed standards for anyone else who comes into your setting, including visitors and contractors.

  Make sure staff know they do not have to tolerate abusive behaviour because the person responsible is a parent, pays fees or has influence over the setting.

• Make reporting quick and easy: keep a simple incident log that takes a few minutes to complete. Tell employees exactly who to go to and tell them what you will do when they report. Employees must also know who they can approach if they do not feel comfortable raising a concern with you. This might include an independent person or an external advice service.

• Prepare yourself and any deputy to respond well: whoever receives a report must know how to support the person who is reporting, what to record and what happens next. Be aware that your response can add to your liability. Poor handling, dismissing a concern as personality, treating a longstanding or high paying family differently, or any form of retaliation against the person who raised it can all make things worse. Protecting your employees does not stop you from raising genuine safeguarding concerns about a child with a parent, and these should always be handled properly.

• Check and keep evidence: review incidents regularly, test whether your controls are working, and record the decisions you made and why. Low numbers of reports do not prove low risk, so look at patterns such as employee turnover, sickness absence and what leavers say in their exit conversations. If a tribunal asks what steps you took, this record is your answer.

You should also consider how these arrangements fit with your wider responsibilities under the EYFS and Ofsted requirements. Staff wellbeing is relevant to the wider leadership and safeguarding culture of your setting and inspectors may explore how leaders support staff during inspection.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as 'all reasonable steps'? We do not have a checklist. What is considered reasonable will depend on your setting and the risks your employees face. ACAS suggests steps such as assessing risks and acting on them, monitoring and recording incidents, having a policy, training employees, reviewing contracts and telling customers the consequences of harassment. For a childcare setting that means telling parents about the new legislation and the consequences their behaviour could have for their family's continued use of the setting.

Who counts as a third party? Anyone who is not the employer or one of its employees. ACAS gives examples including customers, clients, service users, contractors, people at events and other members of the public. In your setting that will usually mean parents and carers, visitors and contractors and anyone else in contact with your employees while they are working.

What if the person harassing my employee is a parent? Parents and carers are third parties under the legislation. If a parent harasses a member of your staff while they are working, you need to take the matter seriously and consider what reasonable steps you could take to prevent it happening again. This might include speaking to the parent, setting clear boundaries for future contact, changing communication arrangements or, in serious cases, reconsidering whether the family can continue using your service. You should record the incident, the action taken and any follow-up conversations.

Is an updated policy enough? No. A policy is only one part of the picture. An employment tribunal will consider whether you assessed the risks, took appropriate preventative action, provided suitable training, dealt properly with reports and checked that your measures were working.

What training do we need? Training should include the employer and deputy, not just employees, and should cover recognising harassment, challenging inappropriate behaviour and responding appropriately to concerns. Training can be organised in-house using the links (sources) below).

What happens in practice is key

You do not need to run a large nursery to have these responsibilities. If you employ people, you need to understand the risks they face, take practical steps to prevent harassment and be able to show what you have done to protect them.

Start by looking at your setting from your employee's perspective. Where might they feel uncomfortable, exposed or unable to challenge someone's behaviour? What would happen if they reported it - to you internally or externally to Ofsted, the Local Authority or another agency or professional?

A policy is important, but the real protection comes from the way you organise work, support your staff and respond when something goes wrong.

Sources

• Department for Business and Trade, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update.

• ACAS, Third party harassment: harassment law changes.

• legislation.gov.uk, Employment Rights Act 2025, section 21 (harassment by third parties).

• legislation.gov.uk, Equality Act 2010, section 26 (harassment).

• legislation.gov.uk, Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023.

• legislation.gov.uk, Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3.

• Health and Safety Executive, Violence and aggression at work: assessing the risks.

• Health and Safety Executive, Violence and aggression at work: reporting and learning from incidents

• Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – Sexual harassment and harassment at work: technical guidance