Civil Service World

Politicians, just like anyone else, make mistakes from time to time. We provide the information to stop the mistakes being made again.

Nowhere is this more important than in the Civil Service. Often in our factchecking, we’re on the phone to government departments, asking for the sources of claims made in ministerial speeches, so that we can judge the evidence for ourselves. This has been difficult in some departments and led to improvements in others. Either way, civil servants are key players in helping us to check the claims that are being made in public debate.

We were delighted to be featured in Civil Service World, the online magazine for the thousands of civil servants that work across the country. Suzannah Brecknell spoke to our Director, Will Moy, about Full Fact’s origins, how we get corrections, and why providing evidence for claims is good politics as well as good practice.

We do lots of work behind the scenes to help civil servants communicate statistics more effectively to ministers and the public, and to make sure that the protections around public debate, such as the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice, are upheld. The more dialogue we can have them, the more we can anchor public debate to reality.

You can read the full interview here.