Online services guidelines        

Editorial values   
Editorial responsibility   
Accuracy   
Fairness, contributors, and consent   
Privacy   
Harm and offence   
Children   
Politics, elections and polling   
War, terror and emergencies   
Equal opportunities and diversity   
Links to external sites   
Credits for outside providers of material   
Partnerships, including partnerships with business   
Interacting with our audiences   
The law   
Accountability and complaints   

Section 8: Politics, elections and polling    

Introduction
The principles relating to our non-political status are set out in the British Council’s Charter. The British Council is a non-political organisation.

Links to external sites
British Council sites covering controversial subjects may offer links to external sites which, taken together, represent a reasonable range of views about the subject. The overall impact of this range of views must be consistent with the purpose and values of the British Council. We must ensure that, when we link to third-party sites, we take into account any concerns about potential breaches of the law, e.g. defamation or incitement to racial hatred.

Election campaigns
Special care needs to be taken during election or referendum campaigns when the British Council’s obligation to be non-political may be under scrutiny.

Advice concerning elections can be obtained from Director Communications.

Message boards
At the time of an election, the British Council will not offer message boards specifically for debate about the election. All message boards must be closely moderated to ensure that any incidental discussions relating to the election could not be construed as the British Council hosting a debate which may be interpreted as promoting the interests or views of any one political party at the expense of another.

Polling
We will at no time organise any online polling or voting or expression of opinion about party political issues which could be translated into anything that could be construed either as an accurate representation of public opinion as a whole or as the British Council’s opinion about the value any political party’s proposition.

Any online polling or vote about a political or controversial public policy issue must be referred to Director Communications for agreement.

DCSIMG