Moderation policy

All comments are welcome and we aim to publish all of them, whether positive or negative. But remember they are subject to the Civil Service Code and the Cabinet Office social media guidance. We won’t publish comments which are in breach of these.

Note that the contents of this blog, including the comments section, may be subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act. In the event of disclosure however, personal data of staff under SCS level will be redacted and comments anonymised. So do please comment freely.

Please keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant. We’re committed to providing an atmosphere in which constructive and mature dialogue takes place. Therefore:

  • No flaming. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable.
  • No swearing.
  • No spamming or flooding. Don’t post the same comment to more than one conversation or more than once.
  • No advertising. We can only accept posts that are your own opinion. We will remove posts where we suspect a vested interest.
  • No impersonation. Adopting an inappropriate user name (one that is vulgar, offensive etc) is also unacceptable.
  • Please do not include your own or anyone else’s personal details.
  • Only include suitable URLs in your recommendation. Links to websites we consider unsuitable will be removed. If you are considering including a URL, please make sure that it adds value and interest to the subject of your recommendation. Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users.
  • No harassment. The DPD welcomes feedback, both positive and negative, about our work but please make sure your comments are in line with the above House Rules. Repeatedly posting personal or offensive comments about individual members of the public or people who work for the DPD may be considered harassment, and these comments will not be published.

[with thanks to the Ministry of Justice for use of their policy]