Feedback and corrections
Full Fact exists to offer accurate and balanced information so that people can make up their minds about claims. We’re grateful to anyone who takes the time to help us improve our work.
If you think we’ve made a mistake, or omitted something, or if there’s something you think we could change to make an article clearer, please let us know and we’ll have a look as soon as possible.
Please contact us with any feedback, corrections, or complaints.
It is very helpful if you are clear about what article you are commenting on, and exactly what your concern is. If you are pointing out other data or research, we would be very grateful for a clear link or reference.
For anything else, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.
Our feedback process
We encourage feedback and are grateful to everyone who takes the trouble to get in touch and help improve our content.
More people get in touch than we can reply to individually. We ask people to contact us through our form so that it can be tracked and handled properly.
There are a few things we try to keep in mind when we handle people’s feedback.
First, we have to maintain our independence, so that our feedback process cannot be used to push our work in one direction or another.
Secondly, we have to balance the time we spend corresponding with people one to one with the time we spend serving a wider public.
Thirdly, we want to make sure we’re providing people with the best information available, so we won’t hesitate to make changes when we think they will make our work better.
So this is how we try to make sure we make the best use of your feedback.
Every piece of feedback is looked at twice
The first time, someone will look at it to decide what if anything we need to do about it. We aim to do this as quickly as possible, usually within days, but at least within two weeks. All emails are read, but will not necessarily receive an individual response.
The second time, even if we felt no action was needed, is when a senior member of our team reviews all feedback to spot any inconsistency or mistake on our part, or any wider lessons to learn.
All feedback through our contact form is automatically logged in a database so we can make sure we don’t miss any.
What we do next
We’re grateful for readers taking the time to send feedback and generally we will try to let you know as soon as we have considered what you’ve said, and if we are making a change in response to it. But we won’t be able to go into detail with every response.
It may be that your feedback has triggered lengthy discussions within the team, even if we ultimately decide not to make a change, or to make a different change than suggested.
We may also review the data again or ask another expert for advice or information.
If we do decide to make a change, it will be marked on the article, and major changes will be shared on the same channels as the original fact check. Changes to content posted on social media or other channels will be published in the channels the original content appeared in. For serious errors or lapses we will include an explanation of what we think went wrong.
We also publish an overview of corrections made to our fact checks.
We may update fact checks with new information when we think this will be helpful to users. These will be labelled as updates.
What happens afterwards
We have a number of ways to make sure we have handled feedback appropriately.
The initial response will be reviewed by a senior member of staff as part of our periodic review of all complaints. We may re-open it if we think necessary. We will also take account of any further response or complaint.
We report to our cross-party board of trustees on feedback received.
Finally, if the subject of a piece complains about it, and they are not happy with our response, we will offer an internal review, and if necessary the trustees can appoint an independent person to review the complaint.
Last updated 1 Jan 2023