From 30 October, a significant change to UK law came quietly into force. Under the Employment Rights Act, employers are now liable for sexual harassment of their staff, cast and crew by third parties. Employers must take "all reasonable steps" to prevent it, and claims can be brought up to six months after an incident.
For the UK film and TV industry, that duty does not stop at the studio door.
Deadline covered the questions this is raising across the sector in a feature this week, and Talent Trust was asked to weigh in. We want to pull out what we think matters most for producers, line producers and heads of production who are trying to work out what to actually do about it.
What the law actually says
A production company or studio is now responsible if someone on their production is sexually harassed by a third party, whether that is a member of the public on location, an agent, a contributor, a supplier or anyone else with no formal connection to the project.
"All reasonable steps" is the test. The legal guidance for the industry will not land in detail until early 2027. In the meantime, the duty of care already applies.
The grey area everyone is asking about
The most common question we hear is: where does the buck stop?
Wrap parties. Transport to and from set. Accommodation. Vox pops on the street. Shoots that require crew to accompany third parties. All of these sit in a space the law expects to be covered, but that most production risk assessments were not written for.
Our view is simple. If people have been working together on a project, and an incident happens in a setting that only exists because of that project, a production company cannot credibly say it has nothing to do with it.
The silence gap
The harder issue is that a lot of what should be raised, isn't.
Our own research on UK productions found that 40% of crew did not feel respected or treated with dignity on their production, and 76% did not feel they could speak up without worrying about unfair repercussions.
That is the gap the new law will quietly expose. If no one has a safe way to report what happened, nothing is time-stamped. If nothing is time-stamped, "we took all reasonable steps" is very hard to evidence.
What productions can do now
A few practical starting points, drawn from the policies we see working:
- Give crew a confidential, always-on route to raise concerns. Not a form that lives in an onboarding pack and never gets used. An anonymous channel they can use during the shoot, at a wrap party, or weeks after wrap.
- Extend risk assessments to the edges of the production. Transport, overnight stays, informal events. If the production put the people there, the production is accountable for the setting.
- Build a record. Dated, structured, independent. Something you can point to when you need to show what was raised, when, and what was done about it.
- Train department heads, not just HR. Under the new duty, "we didn't know" is a weaker defence than it was a week ago.
Where we fit
The TT Index measures crew experience across five areas, including Safety and Conduct, and gives productions a dated, anonymous, structured record of what is actually happening on their shoots. It is the mechanism we think most productions are missing.
For the full Deadline piece and the wider industry debate, read it here: New Anti-Harassment Laws Lead To Questions From UK Film & TV Industry.
If you want to see how this looks on a live production, book a 20-minute demo.