Group pages
Group pages are for policy advisory groups and other types of groups in your organisation.
Policy advisory groups are panels of people who advise on policy development, typically made up of a mix of external experts and civil servants.
Other groups include units, teams and committees within, set up or sponsored by your organisation, and who carry out specific areas of work.
When you need a group page
Group pages should only be set up when there’s:
- evidence of a user need for information about the group itself, not just its outputs
- a clear reason for users to contact the group
For example, the user need for a group page on a policy advisory group is for transparency. The public should be able to see who is advising on and influencing government policy.
Most groups will not need a group page, because people should not need to understand the structure of government in order to interact with it. Usually a reference to the group elsewhere on GOV.UK will be enough, such as in a document collection.
What should go on group pages
Group pages should be used to explain very briefly what the group does or is responsible for.
If it’s a policy advisory group, it can also include documents related to the group’s activities like their:
- terms of reference
- membership
- minutes
- code of conduct
Group pages should not be used to:
- highlight a particular government scheme or project – if this is the purpose of the group, promote the relevant content pages rather than the group page
- create an organisation homepage where everything about the group and the subject area it’s responsible for is collected in one place – consider whether you need a new organisation page instead
- explain the internal structure of government
Get permission before adding a new group page
Your GOV.UK lead or a managing editor needs to ask the Government Digital Service (GDS) for permission to add a new group page.
Once you have permission, you can add the page.
Add or edit a group page
To create or update this content type, you’ll need a Signon account with access to Whitehall Publisher.
You need to:
- Go to Whitehall Publisher.
- Select the ‘More’ tab.
- Select ‘Groups’.
If you’re adding a new page, select ‘Create new group’. Otherwise, search for the name of the group and select ‘Edit’ next to it.
Select ‘Save’ to publish the group page. The draft will go live immediately.
If you’re adding a group page for the first time, you’ll need to publish it before you can add any attachments.
Add or edit the content
For the ‘Name’ field, do not include the acronym. If you need to change the name after publishing, see the guidance below on updating the group’s name.
For the ‘Email’ field, add an email address if there is one. Any additional contact details can be added to the bottom of the ‘Description’ field, under a heading like ‘Address and phone number’.
For the ‘Summary’ field:
- use a single sentence to describe what the group does
- include who the group reports to, if it’s a policy advisory group – add this to the ‘Description’ if there’s no room
- do not use technical terms or the group’s acronym, unless there’s evidence that users search for these terms
For the ‘Description’ field:
- explain the group’s work
- you can add a link to the most important publication, detailed guide or document collection related to the group’s work, but only if there’s a clear action for users to follow
- do not use more than 6 H2 headings, unless the page is for a policy advisory group
You can add a ‘Role’ heading to the ‘Description’, and use the following section to either:
- explain why the public may need to contact the group (for a non-policy advisory group)
- say who the group reports to, if this has not been covered in the ‘Summary’ (for a policy advisory group)
Do not write more than 2 sentences or more than 30 words in total in the ‘Role’ section.
Select ‘Save’ when you’re done. The draft will go live immediately.
You can now add attachments, if needed.
Add or edit attachments for a policy advisory group
You can add attachments to the group page so users can download relevant documents. Do not publish them on a separate page and link to them on the group page.
Make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachments before you upload them.
Select the ‘Attachments’ tab. You can upload a new file attachment and edit or delete any existing ones.
You cannot add HTML attachments to this content type.
When you add an attachment, do not tick ‘Attachment is accessible’. This is so users can see information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format like audio or Braille
For each attachment, you get two codes that you can add to the ‘Description’. You can either add the attachment as:
- an ‘inline’ link
- a ‘publication box’ that you can embed – this will let users see a box with information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format
Which one you pick depends on what document you’re attaching.
If you’re adding a terms of reference
Use a publication box.
If you’re adding membership details
You can use either an inline link or a publication box.
When writing the membership document:
- begin it with ‘Current members are…’
- list the chair of the group first, with ‘(Chair)’ in brackets after their name
- follow this with a bullet point list of members
- only include each member’s name, job titles and the organisations they represent (if it’s not obvious)
Do not include titles or honorifics.
If you’re adding minutes
Use this format for the attachment title: ‘19 January, 2020: minutes’.
Use the publication box option for the group’s:
- terms of reference
- most recent set of minutes
Use the inline option for any other minutes.
Do not attach more than the previous 6 months of minutes. Link to the National Archives web archive for older minutes, using this template link text: ‘See the National Archives website for minutes from [date] and earlier.’
If you’re adding a code of conduct
You can use either an inline link or a publication box.
No images available
You cannot add images to this content type.
Close a group page
When a group closes, update the group page to reflect that. Do not delete it.
Add a call to action box to the top of the page explaining that the group has closed. Consider including links to related information if there’s a user need for it.
For example, a user may need to know more about why the group closed, the outcome of the group’s work or what is being done in this policy area after this group closes.
Keep the rest of the content as a record of what the group did.
Good examples of closed groups include the:
Update the name of a group page
Contact GDS to request a new group page with the updated name.
When you have that approval, close the old group page and set up one with the new name.
A good example of a group that has changed its name is the Group Litigation Order (GLO) Compensation Scheme Advisory Board.