Our social media policy
If you follow the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) on Facebook, X or LinkedIn, you can expect our posts to cover some or all of the following:
- notifications and links for new content (for example, news, press notices, publications, Learning Lessons Bulletins, information about our services, articles, and publicity materials)
- complaints and fatal incidents investigation statistics
- occasional reaction to news stories, articles and publications involving or relevant to the PPO
- invitations to complete stakeholder surveys
- occasional coverage of events
- job vacancies
PPO is independent
Use of our social media accounts are bound by the Civil Service code. We cannot engage in party political issues. We do not compromise our independence through bias towards or endorsement of any other organisation, inside or outside Government.
PPO investigations
We cannot comment on individual complaints or fatal incident investigations through social media. If you have a specific enquiry, contact us.
Following
We will not automatically follow you back. Being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind.
Hashtags and analytics
We may refer to existing hashtags that are in common use. It does not imply endorsement of any kind. We may use analytics to analyse our social media account for trends, insights and engagement. You may unfollow us at any stage.
Availability
We will update and monitor our social media accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday, occasionally updating and monitoring outside of these times. Platforms may occasionally be unavailable, and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to the their downtime.
@messages and direct messages
We welcome feedback and ideas but we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive.
We will review @messages and direct messages and try to make sure that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people at the PPO. Queries can also be sent to us via email or telephone. Visit our contact us page for more information.
Abusive and offensive behaviour
The PPO will not tolerate or engage with any abusive, offensive, or discriminatory behaviour directed towards staff over social media. Such behaviour may include using social media to gain personal information about staff or using social media to embarrass or harass staff.
We will also not tolerate defamatory, fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading comments, or comments that are flame-baiting.
As a first step, the PPO will not respond if we deem the behaviour unacceptable. If behaviour persists, we will escalate this internally. We may block accounts and report threats to the social media platform, to the police or to both.
Inaccurate claims
If the PPO is mentioned in any online content that features inaccuracies, then we may issue a correction statement.