Unacceptable behaviour policy

Purpose

To ensure the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Limited (“Fringe Society”, “we”, or “us”) meets its duty of care towards its staff by providing a clear and effective procedure in place to manage incidences of unacceptable behaviour by Participants (as defined below) in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (the “Fringe”) towards Fringe Society employees.

To ensure the Fringe Society can remedy poor behaviour within the wider festival landscape, offering support for improvement alongside remedies for unacceptable behaviour by Participants (as defined below).

In this policy, “Participants” means all individuals, venues, companies, and contractors who work with the Fringe Society in their professional capacity, as well as individuals participating in a Fringe show. This includes, but is not limited to, artists, venue owners, venue staff, producers, promoters, agents, volunteers, casual workers, media, and industry.

This policy covers two key areas:

unacceptable behaviour by Participants towards the Fringe Society and/or its staff; and
unacceptable behaviour by Participants towards other Participants or their staff.

Introduction

The Fringe Society strives to provide a high standard of customer care to all those involved with the Fringe, as well as ensuring that Participants have a positive experience.

The Fringe Society has a legal duty of care to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its staff, and all staff have the right to be treated with respect in the workplace. The Fringe Society’s staff have the right to have any reports of unacceptable behaviour dealt with fully and fairly. This policy sets out the approach that will be undertaken in circumstances where the behaviour of any Participant is considered to be unacceptable.

This policy also sets out the approach that will be undertaken in circumstances where Participants’ behaviour and actions towards their staff or other Participants are unacceptable, and the role of the Fringe Society in both mediation, remedy and managing complaints/disputes.

Unacceptable Behaviour against the Fringe Society or its staff

We recognise that individuals may sometimes act out of character at times of stress, anxiety or distress and that a multi-arts festival can be a stressful environment, and staff should make reasonable allowances for this. All incidences of unacceptable behaviour should be dealt with in accordance with this policy.

Definition and Scope

We do not expect our staff to tolerate behaviour that we consider to be unacceptable and will take action to protect our staff from such behaviour. We will, for example (but without limitation), not accept behaviour, whether verbal, written, or physical that is:

Abusive, offensive or defamatory:

Violence is not restricted to acts of aggression that may result in physical harm. It also includes behaviour or language, whether oral or written, that may cause staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused.
This includes but is not limited to personal abuse; hate speech; expletives/offensive/ threatening language; derogatory remarks; and rudeness.
We consider inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated allegations as examples of abusive behaviour.

Aggressive, threatening, coercive or intimidating:

Examples of behaviours grouped under this heading include threats, physical violence, personal verbal abuse, unwanted physical attention, including of a sexual nature, and unwanted personal attention (including, for example, on social media).
This policy also applies to any abusive or aggressive behaviour made towards a member of staff’s family or friends in connection with their work at the Society.

Unreasonably persistent or demanding:

Where an individual makes demands on our staff that are considered by us to be unreasonable, for example, through the amount of information they seek, the nature and scale of service they expect, or the number of approaches they make, this policy will apply.
Examples of actions grouped under this heading include demanding responses within an unreasonable timescale, insisting on seeing or speaking to a particular member of staff or representative of the Fringe Society where it is unreasonable to do so, continual phone calls or letters, involving staff in irrelevant and unwarranted discussion, and repeatedly changing the substance of the matter or raising unrelated concerns.
We recognise that in some cases, individuals will not accept that we are unable to assist them further or provide a level of service other than that already provided. Unreasonably persistent and disagreeable behaviour regarding our actions and services may constitute unreasonable behaviour.
Examples of actions grouped under this heading include persistent refusal to accept a decision made in relation to a concern, “spam” mail or email, persistent refusal to accept explanations relating to what we can or cannot do, and continuing to pursue a matter without presenting any new information. The way in which these individuals approach us may be entirely reasonable, but it is their persistent behaviour in continuing to do so that is not.
We consider persistent actions of individuals to be unacceptable when they take up a disproportionate amount of time and resource (as we may determine in our reasonable discretion).

Procedure

The Fringe Society has an internal procedure for the management of complaints, and will take all complaints seriously, seeking legal advice if necessary.

Unacceptable behaviour against the Fringe Society and/or its staff may be met with a number of different actions, including, but not limited to:

removal or prevention of service delivery (e.g. refusing to allow the registration of a show, cancellation of a show, advertising or other engagement);
requesting contact and any communication to be carried out in a specific way (e.g. in writing only) or removing the contact entirely;
requiring that contact and any communication takes place only with a dedicated and named individual (e.g. the Head of Department);
restricting telephone calls and/or other communication with Fringe Society and/or its staff to days and times designated by us;
asking individual or entity subject to complaint to appoint a representative to correspond with us; and
asking individual or entity subject to complaint to enter into an agreement and/or undertakings about their future conduct.

This section does not affect any rights and obligations of Fringe Society staff and/or employees under their employment contract or other related Fringe Society policies.

Where any behaviour threatens the immediate safety and welfare of staff or others, we will consider other options, e.g. reporting the matter to the police or taking legal action. In such cases we will not be obliged to give prior warning of that action.

All remedial decisions will be taken by the Chief Executive and Senior Management Team.

Unacceptable Behaviour against other Participants or Participants’ staff

We recognise that individuals may act out of character at times of stress, anxiety or distress and that a multi-arts festival can be a stressful environment. We also recognise that many Participants may be undertaking engagement with the Fringe for the first time, and as such, the Fringe Society will always seek to support, advise and encourage remediation of issues and improvement of practices across the Fringe.

However, as we strive to provide a high standard of care to all Participants, as well as ensuring the reputation of the Fringe is protected, and fostering an accommodating environment for all Participants, we may need to take certain action if any Participant’s conduct against another Participant constitutes what we consider to be unacceptable behaviour.

Definition and Scope

We consider unacceptable behaviour in this context to include, without limitation, the following:

Exploitative practices without remedy:

repeated poor employment/engagement practices; unfair profit-sharing agreements; poor, or missing, contracts of engagement/employment; misuse of volunteer arrangements; unsafe working environments; unreasonable conditions of employment; withholding of payments; unfair or unexplained charges for services; wilful omission of information;
unreasonable refusal to share Fringe Society communications with staff of the Participant or other Participants, including surveys and best practice guides;
refusal to provide effective policies and procedures around safe working, complaints/grievance, harassment and inclusion; and
refusal to allow the Fringe Society to directly engage with affected staff and Participants to seek remedy and offer mediation.

Disreputable practices:

unsafe working and production environments that bring (or could bring) the Fringe into disrepute; wilful and deliberate omission of information that negatively impacts staff of a Participant’s, or another Participant's, experience;
sustained and malicious media/social media campaigns targeting other Participants or staff;
any breach of the Fringe Society’s best practice guides, where these are subscribed to by the Participant; and
refusal to engage with mediation and other interventions by the Fringe Society aimed at supporting resolution and remedy of issues/challenges.

For the avoidance of doubt, this definition does not extend to any disrepute caused by content showcased at the Fringe, in line with the open access principles of the Fringe.

Personal behaviour, violence and aggressive behaviour:

threats; physical violence; personal verbal abuse; unwanted physical attention, including of a sexual nature and; unwanted personal attention (including, for example, harassment on social media or “spam” mail or email).

Violence is not restricted to acts of aggression that may result in physical harm. It may also be behaviour or language, whether oral or written, that may cause others to feel afraid, threatened or abused. This includes but is not limited to personal abuse; hate speech; expletives / offensive/ threatening language; derogatory remarks and rudeness.

We consider inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated allegations as examples of abusive behaviour.

Unlawful / illegal activity

In some cases, the Fringe Society may receive reports of unlawful / illegal activity, including but not limited to the theft of funds from other Participants, preparation, submission, and/or distribution of fraudulent documentation, misrepresentation (including identity theft/misuse), drug use, and sexual assault. There is a zero-tolerance approach to these behaviours from any Participant towards their staff, other Participants, or any other person.

Procedure

The Fringe Society has an internal procedure for the management of complaints, and will take all complaints seriously, seeking legal advice if necessary.

The Fringe Society offers a mediation and support service to all Participants and will continue to seek resolution to arising issues and challenges through mediation, discussion, and support.

Unacceptable behaviour may lead to a number of different actions and remedies, which are further defined and set out in the Unacceptable Behaviour Remedies Policy.

Unlawful / illegal behaviour will be met with an immediate removal of services by the Fringe Society and actions will be reported to the police. Where any behaviour threatens the immediate safety and welfare of staff or others, we will consider other options, e.g. taking legal action.

In such cases we will not be obliged to give prior warning of that action. Decisions will be taken by the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Senior Management Team and the Board of Directors. Appeals can be made to the Board of Directors through the Deputy Chief Executive. Appeals requests can be submitted by email to [email protected].