Social Media Guidance

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Analytics cookies
Name	Purpose	Expires
_ga	These help us count how many people visit on www.ppo.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before	2 years
_gid	These help us count how many people visit on www.ppo.gov.uk by tracking if you’ve visited before	24 hours
_gat	These help us to manage how we collect analytics when we have lots of visitors on the site at one time	10 minutes

All users
Name	Purpose	Expires
wordpress_test_cookie	This is used to test whether the browser accepts cookies	When you close your browser
PHPSESSID	This is used to link your device to the information sent to the server from your browser. It is typically used to avoid you having to retype information when moving from one page to another.	When you close your browser
ccfw_wp_plugin.banner.hidden	Lets us know you have chosen which cookies are used so we can stop the cookie banner appearing when you return to the site.	1 year
ccfw_wp_plugin.ga.accept	Lets us know you have accepted Google Analytics cookies so we can stop them loading when you return to the site.	1 year

Logged in users
Name	Purpose	Expires
wordpress_[hash]	This authenticates you when you log in to the admin area	When you close your browser
wordpress_logged_in	This shows the site that you’re logged in and who you are so you can access the functions you need	When you close your browser
wordpress_sec	If you are logged in as a site admin, this stores your authentication details.	When you close your browser
wp-settings-{time}-[UID]	The number on the end [UID] is your individual user ID from the users database.	1 year

Home > About us > Information > Social Media Guidance

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s Twitter Policy

If you follow @PPOmbudsman you can expect tweets covering some or all of the following:

Notifications and links for our 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

PPO has to remain independent

Use of our Twitter account is bound by the Civil Service Code. We cannot engage on issues of party politics. Nor do we 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 via social media – open or past. If you have a specific enquiry, please go to our Contact Us page.

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 Twitter account during office hours, Monday to Friday, occasionally updating and monitoring outside of these times. Twitter may occasionally be unavailable, and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter downtime.

@messages and direct messages

We welcome feedback and ideas from all our followers. However, 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 in the Department. Queries can 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 to the PPO’s Senior Leaders. We may block accounts and threats may be reported to the social media platform and/ or the police.

Inaccurate claims

If the PPO is mentioned in any online content that features inaccuracies, then we may issue a correction statement.