On every page of our website in the footer, it says:

Full Fact is a registered charity (no. 1158683) and a non-profit company (no. 6975984) limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales.

Compliant, as described in the applicant's response.

1. Full Fact was launched in 2010 by a cross-party group of trustees. The initial idea came from conversations about the accuracy of public debate in the UK and the gap that could be filled by a truly independent, nonpartisan and non-governmental organisation. The first task was to bring together a cross-party group of trustees to ensure that Full Fact started on a cross party basis. Before launch, we agreed rigorous safeguards in place at every level of the organisation to ensure our neutrality. These were carefully constructed based on advice from our board and examples ranging from Amnesty International to the BBC. They include the cross-party board, fundraising safeguards, a conflict of interests policy, restrictions on staff political activity, feedback processes, operating guidelines, external reviews, and more. Most importantly, they include carefully recruiting staff who are sensitive to these issues.

2. At the time of writing, Full Fact employs 40 employees across six teams: Editorial, Communications, Policy & Research, Artificial Intelligence, Fundraising and Operations. The team is led by our Chief Executive and Management team, who are accountable to our volunteer trustee board. We occasionally receive support from volunteers on various projects and during elections and referendums. More information on the roles in the team is available at: https://fullfact.org/about/our-team/

3. Full Fact fights the causes and consequences of bad information in four ways:

• Fact checking - to inform our audiences and maintain scrutiny of people in power
• Corrections & interventions - to stop the spread of specific unsubstantiated claims and hold people to account
• Systems change - to help make bad information rarer and less harmful
• Advocating high standards - to help maintain high expectations of and from those in public life

4. We want Full Fact to become the go-to place for people who want to tackle bad information in areas they care about. We are changing to become much more focused on how other people can take action and to work alongside communities targeted by and with bad information. Our goal is to be the most visible campaigners for higher standards of honesty and accuracy in public debate—and not just be seen as suppliers of fact checks. Our offer to that audience comes in three parts -

1. Fact checking - to expose claims and practises that are wrong that need fixing

2. Interventions - we are asking 1000s of people to take action with us to demand high standards and thank those who live up to them

3. Systems change - giving people opportunities to sign a petition expressing their demand for higher standards of accuracy in public life, lobby parliament to ensure misinformation and disinformation are tackled proportionately in the Online Safety Bill and have their say about what a good election looks like and what we can do to achieve it

We are also working to diversify our income so that we can sustain our current charity budget and work towards an ambition of getting no more than 15% of our funding from any one source

Over the coming year one of our strategic objectives is for our fact checking to systematically raise standards in public debate and change the behaviour of powerful actors. We are achieving that through: increasing the number of corrections made by politicians; asking individuals and organisations to provide evidence for their claims; requesting information be improved; asking standards bodies to take action; asking standards bodies to change or introduce a rule to improve the information environment. A second is to work towards the ambition of 100,000 people taking action to raise standards in public debate. We are investing in audience research and expertise in digital campaigning to grow our reach beyond our loyal supporters and encourage people to mail their MP or sign a petition, and if possible to donate to the charity. A third is to ensure we are ready for the UK election, expected in 2024, by developing our asks, products and relationships. And finally we are focussed on building a sustainable income from philanthropy and corporate income, individual giving, third-party fact checking and sales of our AI tool and training packages.

Full Fact's commendable history, operations and scale are clearly described here in length. Compliant.

We have published 556 fact checks between January and September this year. In 2022 we published 644. All our fact checks can be viewed on our website at www.fullfact.org/latest.Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the links attached confirms that the applicant surpasses the minimum requirement of one fact check published over each week on average.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

Compliant.

See randomised sample, relevant for this section and furthers ones that requires review over such sample:

Prime Minister wrong to say UK’s debt ‘is falling’ | November 9, 2023

https://fullfact.org/economy/rishi-sunak-debt-falling/

Video of fireworks accident is not linked to the Israel-Gaza conflict | November 8, 2023

https://fullfact.org/online/fireworks-accident-israel-gaza-conflict/

Is the asylum backlog ‘falling rapidly’? | October 27, 2023

https://fullfact.org/immigration/asylum-backlog-figures/

Waiting lists can’t be compared through the whole history of the NHS | October 18, 2023

https://fullfact.org/health/starmer-conference-waiting-lists-times/

How has the gender pay gap changed under the Conservatives? | October 16, 2023

https://fullfact.org/economy/gender-pay-gap-dodds/

Fake US government memo authorising $8 billion of aid for Israel circulates on Facebook | October 13, 2023

https://fullfact.org/online/us-government-memo-israel/

Are 40% more Welsh patients ‘escaping’ to England for treatment? | October 12, 2023

https://fullfact.org/health/wales-nhs-england-treatment-steve-barclay/

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party conference speech: fact checked | October 10, 2023

https://fullfact.org/news/keir-starmer-conference-speech-2023/

MPs do not receive £160 a week grocery allowance | October 9, 2023

https://fullfact.org/online/mp-food-allowance-jobseekers/

Video does not show ‘migrants’ cooking a dog in Dublin | October 6, 2023

https://fullfact.org/online/video-roast-dog-migrants-Dublin/

Covid vaccine project using fragments of HIV was cancelled in 2020 | October 4, 2023

https://fullfact.org/health/covid-vaccine-HIV-fragment-australia-horizon/

We do not accept any funding from the state or political parties in the UK or otherwise. We have not received any funding from local state or political actors over the previous financial year, nor do we have any commercial or financial relationships with state or political actors.

Representatives of the largest UK political parties form part of our trustee board. We have always ensured that there is one member from each of the three largest UK-wide parties, alongside politically independent board members. All board members can be viewed on our website. Our board has no input into Full Fact’s editorial content and all editorial decisions are made by our Editor and our Chief Executive.

Compliant; as described, there is no state involvement, but there is cross-party involvement via a presence of a trustee board representative from each of UK's three largest parties. They have no input into the editorial content.

N/A We have not received any funding from local or foreign state or political actors.  

Compliant.

Full Fact is a registered charity so we are legally required to be ‘objective, ‘balanced’, and to observe ‘strict political neutrality’. We monitor media, politicians and pressure groups across the political spectrum.

When publishing roundups (multiple claims from a TV show/debate), if we check a claim from a member of the government, we ensure that we also check one from the member of the official opposition (and vice versa). We also ensure that we do not only check claims from one person in a roundup, and aim for balance from across the debate.

As fact checkers, the accuracy of our work is the highest priority. Our operating guidelines and editorial standards are designed to ensure that our work is thoroughly reviewed, well evidenced, unbiased and written in the clearest possible terms. All our pieces are reviewed by more than one fact checker and we work hard to ensure that our work is done to the highest standard.

When fact checking, we follow a clear process. First we need to understand the claim. We don’t only fact check the evidence used in a claim, but also the underlying assumption. Factually correct information can be used to make a point which is misleading or incorrect, so it’s important to draw out exactly what someone means when they make a statement.

Then (where possible) we contact the claimant. Unless the claim’s source is self-evident, we try to contact the claimant to ask them about their source, and for any other information we need to understand it.

Then we gather our evidence. We always try and gather a wide range of sources of evidence relating to a claim. We link to primary sources throughout our fact checks.

Sometimes we contact experts. We cover a wide range of topic areas, and we’re not experts on everything. We want to ensure we’re giving readers the most complete picture we can, and sometimes we need guidance in finding or understanding information. In these cases we speak to relevant experts for advice. Crucially, this grant will help to widen our access to legal expertise for legal fact checks.

Once the evidence is gathered and analysed, we can write the article. Our articles are intended to guide the reader through all the evidence as clearly as possible so that they can make up their own mind about a claim. We’ll also explain the wider context around the issue when it’s relevant to do so.

Everything we publish on our website is reviewed by two other editors before publication in order to make sure that it is correct, impartial and engaging.

Reviewing is restricted to experienced fact checkers. Our six week training programme covers statistics, impartiality, polling and surveys, making graphs, and good communication. 

Fact checks have a standardised claim and conclusion intended to guide not dictate readers’ conclusions.

We last conducted an independent editorial review of our fact-checking process and outputs in 2022.

Ten fact checks published in 2023

The total asylum initial decision backlog has increased since December

Labour fails to back up claim that the NHS owns 10% of the world’s pagers

The suicide rate may not have been rising in recent years

School statistics don’t show 140,000 children ‘never came back’ after pandemic disruption

Sadiq Khan did not have a ‘minor cardiac arrest’ at climate conference

Boris Johnson did not win the largest Conservative majority in 44 years

The overall NHS waiting list continues to rise

Most junior doctors’ basic pay was higher than £14 per hour in 2022/23

Liberal Democrat analysis of Rishi Sunak’s first 100 days contains several flaws

Government claims on police officer numbers don’t tell the whole story

Full Fact outlines a well-defined policy and methodology for conducting fact-checks in their response, aligning with the expected standards.

An assessment of the fact-checks provided by the applicant demonstrates their compliance. They consistently apply rigorous standards of evidence and judgment to equivalent claims, regardless of the source of the claim. They adhere to the essential process for each fact-check, allowing the evidence to dictate their conclusions. Compliant.

Please refer to the FAQs section on our website:

https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#request-a-check

https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#what-do-you-check

The links in the applicant's FAQ page clearly describe their criteria in selecting claims to check, covering their reach and importance and ensuring a coverage of claims from all sides of the aisle. Compliant.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the fact checks covered shows the applicant to be compliant with the criteria.

Example for an article that mentions relevant interests of sources providing evidence:

The overall NHS waiting list continues to rise | June 14, 2023

https://fullfact.org/health/rishi-sunak-cutting-waiting-lists/

"Politicians must be clear what they mean when making claims using official data to describe public services. Otherwise they risk misleading people about the government’s performance—or, in this case, access to the NHS.

Health policy is devolved, so this article only looks at waiting lists in England, which is the part of the UK health system that the UK government controls."

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the fact checks covered shows the applicant to be compliant with the criteria. It is not showing support for any party or political figure, and covering with accuracy all political sides in an impartial manner. It is not advocating for or against any policy positions on any issues save for transparency and accuracy in public debate.

FAQ

https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#neutrality

Impartiality

https://fullfact.org/about/impartiality/

Job page under our standards and neutrality

https://fullfact.org/about/jobs/

A review of the links attached by the applicant shows that it is compliant about its public non-partisanship policy.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

(See Section 1.4 for the randomised sample)

An examination of the randomised sample reveals that the applicant consistently cites and references the sources of evidence utilized in their fact-checks, providing relevant links. This practice allows readers to independently replicate the fact-checking process.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the random sample shows the applicant to be compliant with the criteria, and use primary sources for evidence cited.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the sample shows the applicant to use multiple evidence to fact check relevant claims made.

Example: Prime Minister wrong to say UK’s debt ‘is falling’ | November 9, 2023

https://fullfact.org/economy/rishi-sunak-debt-falling/

The article cites multiple sources and metrics for estimating the UK debt.

Please see https://fullfact.org/latest/

A review of the random sample shows the applicant to be compliant with the criteria, and identify relevant interests of the sources used where relevant.

Example: Is the asylum backlog ‘falling rapidly’? | October 27, 2023

https://fullfact.org/immigration/asylum-backlog-figures/

"When ministers make claims about the asylum backlog, they should be clear about which backlog they're referring to so as to prevent the public from being misled. It is reasonable to assume that people might think the phrase “asylum backlog” refers to the total number of asylum cases awaiting an initial decision. If MPs or ministers are referring to the backlog of initial decisions relating to asylum applications made before 28 June 2022, they should ensure they make this clear."

Full Fact is an independent organisation. A registered charity (no. 1158683) and a non-profit company (no. 6975984) limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales.

Proof of independent charity status

Proof of independent company registration

Compliant, as present in the applicant's response.

https://fullfact.org/about/funding/

The footer on each page on our website includes the following: Full Fact is a registered charity (no. 1158683) and a non-profit company (no. 6975984) limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales.

Compliant, as described in the applicant's response.

You can see all of our staff and their roles at: https://fullfact.org/about/our-team/

You can see how our editorial process works at: https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#how-do-you-factcheck

Our FAQ on How do you stay neutral? states that "The Board of Trustees does not have any control over day-to-day editorial decisions. These are the responsibility of the Chief Executive."

Our funding page states: "Our funders have no input into our editorial content or decision making."

Compliant, as present in the attached links and as described in Full Fact's FAQ.

https://fullfact.org/about/our-team/

Compliant, as presented in the attached link.

https://fullfact.org/about/contact/

https://fullfact.org/get-involved/suggest-a-fact-check/

We cover this in a few FAQs

What kind of sources do you use? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#sources

Why don't you have ratings? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#ratings

How do you fact check? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#how-do-you-factcheck

We have also published Full Fact’s Operating Guidelines for the Third Party Fact Checking programme publicly here https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/tpfc-q1q2-2019.pdf from page 36 onwards.https://fullfact.org/about/feedback/

Compliant.

https://fullfact.org/get-involved/contact/

"If you have questions about fact checks, donations or talks and events, or if you just want to suggest something for us to check, use the form to get in touch." 

We cover this in a few FAQs

What kind of sources do you use? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#sources

Why don't you have ratings? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#ratings

How do you fact check? https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#how-do-you-factcheck

We have also published Full Fact’s Operating Guidelines for the Third Party Fact Checking programme publicly here https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/tpfc-q1q2-2019.pdf from page 36 onwards. 

Full Fact's methodology is publicly present in the attached links, as required. Compliant.

A review of the randomised sample (as presented in Section 1.4) shows the applicant to be compliant with this criteria, and to focus its fact checks on claims with high importance and reach.

A review of the randomised sample (as presented in Section 1.4) shows the applicant to be compliant with this criteria, and to use evidence that would either confirm or reject covered claims.

Example: How has the gender pay gap changed under the Conservatives? | October 16, 2023

https://fullfact.org/economy/gender-pay-gap-dodds/

There are multiple metrics used in this fact check, some reject the claim that gender pay gaps were increased under the Tories leadership, and others support it (although with caveats, as the verdict is not supportive of this claim at large).

A review of the random sample indicates that the applicant maintains equal and rigorous standards in their fact checks, irrespective of the claimant's identity. For more detailed examples, see section(s) above. Compliant.

As present in the reviewed sample, in cases where possible, the applicant reaches out to claimant's to seek response on fact checks. This is a standard section of most of their fact checks, aside from those covering online claims rather than public speakers.

Example: Is the asylum backlog ‘falling rapidly’? | October 27, 2023

https://fullfact.org/immigration/asylum-backlog-figures/

"After publishing this fact check, we wrote to Robert Jenrick to ask that he is clear about which backlog he is referring to in future.

Mr Jenrick is yet to respond."

We invite people to send us claims to check through our contact form https://fullfact.org/about/contact/ and through our WhatsApp number https://fullfact.org/get-involved/suggest-a-fact-check/

Also please refer to the FAQs section “How can I ask you to check a claim?” and “What kind of thing do you check?”

Our toolkit pages help people understand how to spot misleading information: https://fullfact.org/toolkit/

Compliant, as present in the FAQ and the attached link.

Our feedback and complaints process are captured here: https://fullfact.org/about/feedback/ and under the FAQs questions “How can I make a complaint about Full Fact?”. We also invite people to read the IFCN's complaints policy here: https://fullfact.org/about/international-fact-checking-network/

We tell people what we do when we make a mistake here: https://fullfact.org/about/frequently-asked-questions/#corrections

Compliant, as present in the attached links provided by Full Fact.

A review of Full Fact's corrections policy shows that it meets the criteria, laying out definitions for which mistakes are covered, how they are handled going through revision, and alternatively how some complaints may not justify a response.

https://fullfact.org/about/feedback/

"...

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.

..."

To date in 2023, we have made corrections to 32 fact checks, all in line with our feedback and corrections policy. Details of all 32 fact checks can be found on our public corrections page: https://fullfact.org/about/corrections/

All corrected articles note the correction and the date it was made at the bottom of the article.

Compliant - the applicant's page covers a correction log of the last 3 years, including the last year.

Example: Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party conference speech: fact checked | October 10, 2023

https://fullfact.org/news/keir-starmer-conference-speech-2023/

"Correction 12 October 2023

We corrected a percentage calculation in this article to 45% instead of 55%"

https://fullfact.org/about/international-fact-checking-network/

Compliant. "These five commitments are important to us and other reputable fact checkers. The IFCN has its own complaints function which you can read about here."

This is not applicable.