Methodology & Ratings

2.How we verify

Every fact check follows the same four-step process:

1. Step 1 — Archive the original claim

   We record the post's permalink and take a timestamped screenshot, so the claim we assess is fixed even if the original post is later edited or deleted.

2. Step 2 — Trace the claim to its primary source

   We identify where the underlying figure actually comes from and obtain it directly: Freedom of Information responses, council meeting minutes and accounts, Home Office statistics, ONS datasets, Ombudsman reports, or Hampshire Constabulary crime statistics. We do not rely on a media report of a figure when the underlying document is obtainable.

3. Step 3 — Seek a right of reply

   Where a fact check concerns a specific organisation or public figure — a council, an MP, a public body — we contact them (for example via a council press office) before publication and reflect any substantive response in the article.

4. Step 4 — Write and publish the verdict

   We set out the claim, the evidence, and our rating, linking every source so readers can verify our work themselves. A second reviewer checks each verdict before it is published.

3.Our rating system

Every fact check carries one of four ratings. The rating applies to the central factual claim as most readers would reasonably understand it.

4.Sourcing standards

We always link to the primary source of a figure, not to a media report describing it. Readers should be able to click through to the same document we used and check our reasoning end to end.

Sources we routinely rely on include:

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) datasets and bulletins
• Home Office statistics, including asylum support and accommodation data
• Local authority statements of accounts, budgets and committee papers (Portsmouth City Council, Hampshire County Council and neighbouring authorities)
• Hampshire Constabulary and police.uk crime statistics
• Local Government Association publications and Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman reports
• Freedom of Information responses, published in full

Where sources conflict, we say so, explain which we consider more reliable and why, and rate the claim accordingly. Where the only available evidence is secondary, we identify it as such.

5.Corrections policy

We hold ourselves to the same standard we apply to others. If we get something wrong, we correct it promptly and transparently:

• Substantive errors are corrected as soon as they are established, normally within 48 hours.
• Every corrected article carries a dated changelog stating what was changed and why. We do not silently edit published verdicts.
• If a correction changes a rating, we say so prominently at the top of the article.

To request a correction, email [email protected] with the article link and the evidence you believe we have missed. We acknowledge every correction request and respond with our decision and reasoning.

6.How UK Facts is built

This site is built and researched with extensive use of AI. That is worth stating plainly rather than leaving readers to guess, and worth being specific about what it does and does not mean for the numbers on this site.

• —AI is used extensively in building and researching this site — drafting page structure, pulling figures from official datasets, and proposing first-draft analysis.
• —Multiple agents and models are often used to challenge and compare each other’s outputs, rather than one model’s answer being taken as final.
• —Model output is never treated as evidence. A model saying a number is true does not make it true — every figure traces to a named official publication, not to a model’s claim about one.
• —Claims and figures are checked against official sources before publication, not accepted on a model’s say-so.
• —Calculations are reproducible: where this site has computed something itself (rather than quoting a published figure), the inputs and method are stated so a reader could redo the arithmetic.
• —Human review is required before publication, and the visual presentation of every page is human-reviewed, not auto-published from a model’s output.
• —AI can still hallucinate — state things confidently that are not true. This process reduces that risk; it does not eliminate it.
• —UK Facts does not claim 100% accuracy. Corrections and uncertainty are treated as a normal part of the system, not a failure of it — see the corrections policy above.

The trust model

Six checks stand between a model’s draft and a published page:

1. 1Primary-source verification
2. 2Reproducible calculations
3. 3Visible provenance
4. 4Cross-checking
5. 5Human approval
6. 6Public corrections

None of this eliminates error. It reduces it, and it means an error found has a published correction, not a quiet edit. If you find one, use the corrections process above.

7.Ethics & data protection

Our research involves analysing public social media content, and we handle that data carefully:

• We comply with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
• We do not publish personal data of private individuals. Our fact checks address claims, not the people sharing them; private individuals who post or share a claim are not named or identified in our articles.
• We do not use any data we collect for advertising, ad targeting, profiling or political campaigning of any kind, and we do not sell or share it with third parties.
• Research data is retained for a maximum of 12 months on servers located in the United Kingdom, and is then deleted.
• We honour deletion requests: if content we hold is deleted at source or its author asks us to remove it from our research records, we do so, subject only to what is necessary to support a published fact check.

Data protection queries can be sent to [email protected].

8.Funding & non-partisanship

UK Facts is funded by donations from readers. We do not accept funding from political parties, politicians, their offices or campaign organisations, and we do not carry advertising from political campaigns. No donor has any say in which claims we examine or what we conclude.

We are non-partisan by policy and by practice. We fact-check claims made by and about all political parties, applying identical evidentiary standards regardless of who benefits from the outcome. Contributors must disclose conflicts of interest, and no one holding an active role in a political party or campaign works on our fact checks. Our commitment to these standards is described further on our About page.