This Safeguarding and Minors Policy is published by Regional Report Media Ltd., a private limited company registered in England and Wales (company number 17143892, registered office 3 New Bailey Street, 5th Floor, Manchester M3 5FS, United Kingdom). The policy is overseen by Margaret Ellison, Editor-in-Chief, and Oliver Reeves, Standards and Fact-Checking Lead. It governs all editorial content published on RegionalReport.co.uk that involves individuals under the age of 18, as well as schools, youth organisations, and settings where children and young people are the primary subject.
Policy Scope and Legal Framework
This policy applies to all editorial output — including news briefs, explainers, features, interviews, reviews, opinion pieces, images, and video — that names or identifies a minor, discusses their activities, or reports on incidents involving schools, youth clubs, sports teams, or other child-focused organisations. We adhere to the principles of the Children Act 1989 and 2004, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as implemented in UK law, and the safeguarding guidelines issued by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) of which we are a member. Any deviation from this policy requires written authorisation from the Editor-in-Chief and must be recorded in the publication’s editorial log.
Editorial Standards for Minors
We exercise particular care to avoid sensationalism when reporting on minors. Our journalists and editors follow these baseline rules:
- We do not publish the full name of any minor (under 18) in a story about crime, abuse, or family court proceedings unless there is a demonstrable and overriding public interest, and then only after legal advice and approval from the Standards and Fact-Checking Lead.
- For non-sensitive stories (e.g., school sports achievements, community art projects), we obtain verifiable parental or guardian consent before naming, photographing, or interviewing any child. This consent is documented and retained.
- We avoid including details that could enable re-identification, such as precise home addresses, school names (when linked to a specific child’s vulnerability), or social media handles.
- Photographs and video of minors are selected and captioned with the same standard; we do not use images that could be interpreted as mocking, exploitative, or gratuitous.
For complete editorial principles, see our Editorial Policy. For how we handle the personal data of minors, refer to our Privacy Policy.
Additional Review and Approval Process
Any story that names or identifies a minor, or that reports on an incident or event in a school or youth organisation, must be flagged during the editorial planning stage. The story is then assigned for additional review by Oliver Reeves, who will assess the following: whether the coverage is proportionate and in the child’s best interests; whether any legal restrictions (e.g., reporting restrictions under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999) apply; and whether the intended audience is likely to draw harmful conclusions from the content. Where a minor is the victim or witness of a crime, the Editor-in-Chief is consulted before publication. All such stories are logged in our fact-checking and verification system.
Transparency and Accountability
We recognise that mistakes in reporting on minors can cause lasting harm. If a reader believes our coverage has breached this policy, they are encouraged to contact our Complaints Procedure page, which details how we investigate and remedy errors. We also maintain a Sources and Standards page that explains our general approach to evidence and attribution. Our funding model — including advertising, affiliate links, and sponsored content — is disclosed on our Ownership and Funding page; commercial arrangements never influence editorial decisions about minors.
Our Commitments
- Consent. We will seek and document verifiable parental or guardian consent before publishing identifiable information about a minor in any context that is not already protected by a statutory reporting restriction.
- Proportionality. We will weigh any public interest in reporting against the potential risk to a child’s safety, privacy, and long‑term wellbeing, and err on the side of non‑identification.
- Review. All stories involving minors, schools, or youth organisations will receive a mandatory second review from the Standards and Fact‑Checking Lead before publication.
- Training. Every journalist and editor at RegionalReport.co.uk will receive safeguarding awareness training at induction and annually thereafter, with a formal record kept by the HR function.
- Accountability. We will publish a summary of any upheld complaints under this policy in our annual transparency report and, where appropriate, issue a correction or removal in line with our Corrections Policy.