Conventions on government publicity

Websites maintained by UK Government departments and agencies, the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Executive and the National Assembly for Wales are a form of publicity, and are subject to the conventions on government publicity and advertising.

These conventions are set out and explained at the following websites:

• Guidance on the work of the Government Information Service (GICS)

• GICS handbook

In summary, they require that government publicity:

• should be relevant to government responsibilities;

• should be objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical;

• should not be party political, nor liable to misrepresentation as such;

• should be produced and distributed in an economical and relevant way, so that the costs can be justified as a proper expenditure of public funds.

These rules not only govern decisions on what should or should not be published on the Internet; they also apply to issues of content and style. For example, departments should take care when publishing ministerial speeches on the Internet to remove overtly party political content, such as direct attacks on policies and opinions of Opposition parties and groups.