FOI 25-412 SAS Staff on Staff Sexual Assault

Freedom of Information Request

Reference
FOI 25-412 SAS Staff on Staff Sexual Assault
Request Date
19 Sep 2025
Response Date
17 Oct 2025
Information Requested
  1. The number of reports, complaints, or allegations of sexual assault, rape or sexual harassment made by staff (including paramedics, control room staff, student paramedics, volunteers, and contractors) against other members of staff within your organisation for each of the past six calendar years (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and if available, 2025 to date). 
  1. For each year, please provide a breakdown of: 
  1. a) The staff role of the complainant (e.g. paramedic, trainee, control room staff – if recorded)
  2. b) The staff role of the alleged perpetrator (if recorded)
  3. c) Whether the case was investigated formally, informally, or not investigated
  4. d) The outcome of the investigation (e.g. upheld, not upheld, ongoing, referred to police, disciplinary action, dismissal, resignation, no further action, other).
  1. If available, the number of staff who have been dismissed, suspended, or otherwise sanctioned following allegations of sexual assault or harassment during the same period. 

For clarity, I am only requesting incidents where both the complainant and the alleged perpetrator were members of staff within the organisation. 

Response

Important to note – Between 2017 – 2021 the reports did not indicate if the harassment cases were sexual harassment reported against other SAS staff members, so these numbers have not been included. I have applied Section 17 of FOISA, the Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold the information you have requested. 

Between 01/01/2019 - 16/10/2025 there have been 12 reports of sexual assault, rape or sexual harassment made by Scottish Ambulance Service Staff against other SAS staff.  Each of the 12 cases reported were investigated formally. 

Under data protection legislation, the Scottish Ambulance Service has a legal and ethical duty to ensure that personal data is not disclosed in a manner that could directly or indirectly lead to the identification of individual staff members. This includes circumstances where data is broken down into small subsets or categories that, when combined with other information, could reasonably result in individuals being identifiable. 

In this instance, the numbers involved are too small to be disaggregated in the way requested without creating a significant risk of identification. As such, the requested breakdown by year, staff roles, outcomes or disciplinary actions cannot be provided, in order to uphold our obligations under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. 

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