Guidance

Government’s principles of engagement

Published 14 March 2024

Applies to England

1. Best practice for external engagement

External engagement is a fundamental part of what UK ministerial government departments do. The UK government engages with external individuals, organisations and groups across the country – from charities and community organisations through to local people. Working with external stakeholders helps to build confidence in government, create greater transparency and support better decision-making. The UK government’s external engagement can strengthen our democracy, our policy-making and our society.

Whenever and wherever it is undertaken, engagement should be both meaningful and purposeful. To this end, the UK government has identified the following best practice:

1. Promoting transparency throughout engagement. Officials should set a clear purpose for engagement. Participants should know how engagement might affect policy development or official decisions.

2. Ensuring a wide breadth of representation in engagement. Officials should identify a range of stakeholders to deepen government’s understanding of current and potential partners and how to deliver on the objectives of engagement.

3. Maintaining relationships with external stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement should be regular and sustained where appropriate. Officials are encouraged to actively cultivate and invest in positive relationships with external stakeholders where this benefits both parties.

2. Taking a balanced approach

By following best practice, the UK government will be able to enhance and broaden its external engagement. However, there are some limited circumstances where the views that individuals, organisations or groups have expressed – or the conduct that they have engaged in – means that it may not be appropriate for the UK government to engage. In particular, the UK government may decide to not engage with, or provide funding to, certain individuals, organisations or groups where this is necessary to meet its core aims to maintain public confidence in government, uphold democratic values, and protect the rights and freedoms of others.

This document sets out three engagement standards that UK government ministerial departments will be expected to consider when undertaking external engagement or providing funding, once they have the appropriate implementation processes in place. The UK government is publishing accompanying guidance on implementing these standards. The standards are intended to apply to the following types of engagement with individuals, organisations or groups:

• ministerial engagement with individuals, organisations and groups outside of the UK government
• Civil Service engagement with individuals, organisations and groups outside the UK government
• UK government grants
• appointments to UK government advisory bodies and groups

In time, the scope of the engagement standards may be expanded to include more forms of government engagement. The engagement standards do not apply to:

• situations where there is a legal duty to undertake engagement, including law enforcement activity
• trade
• foreign diplomatic engagement
• engagement for the purposes of national security and defence
• engagement with public authorities, public officials, or members of local, devolved or national legislatures
• UK government contracts (which are covered by existing procurement legislation)
• any engagement in Northern Ireland by UK government ministerial departments

Together with the accompanying guidance, these standards are intended to provide a framework to guide officials in weighing up the benefits and risks to make a decision on whether to undertake engagement or provide funding. They are designed to help officials feel more confident in the engagement decisions they take and to engage more widely – thereby increasing the quality and consistency of government’s engagement. They also seek to provide greater transparency for external stakeholders as to the basis upon which government decides whether to engage with individuals, groups and organisations.

3. Applying the standards in practice

The accompanying guidance is designed to support the engagement standards ministerial departments to implement the engagement standards.

To ensure that the standards achieve government’s aims and result in the desired improvements to its engagement practices, their implementation will be closely monitored in key policy and operational teams by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

The engagement standards and guidance will be kept under review and may be updated and amended to support continuous improvement to engagement practices.

4. Engagement standards

The engagement standards are contravened when individuals, organisations or groups fall within any of the descriptions provided in the standards.

Standard One: In the opinion of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, demonstrate ‘extremism’ as set out in the 2024 definition.

Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology^{[footnote 1]} based on violence, hatred or intolerance^{[footnote 2]}, that aims to:

1. negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms^{[footnote 3]} of others; or
2. undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy^{[footnote 4]} and democratic rights^{[footnote 5]}; or
3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).

The above is a summary only and must be considered alongside the full 2024 definition of extremism. This provides more detail of the types of behaviour which may be relevant to the definition, and ensures, for example, that this standard does not curtail civil liberties such as freedom of expression, religion, political belief or the freedom to engage in lawful protest.

At present, Standard One applies only where the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has indicated that in his opinion the definition is met.

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Standard Two: Publicly promote views that condone serious criminal activity.

This may include behaviour such as:

• publicly sharing materials to condone or otherwise support serious criminal activity (whether or not any serious criminal activity has actually taken place)
• intentionally providing an uncritical platform for individuals or representatives of groups or organisations that engage in serious criminal activity
• publicly facilitating serious criminal activity through provision of endorsement, funding or other forms of support

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Standard Three: Have unspent convictions or are under investigation for serious criminal activity; have unspent convictions or are being investigated for financial crime; are excluded or suspended by a professional body or regulator because of a finding of, or an investigation into, serious misconduct; are the subject of UK sanctions measures; or are proscribed by the UK government.

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1. Ideology: A set of social, political, or religious ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that contribute to a person’s worldview. ↩

2. This phrase is found consistently in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights; see for example Perinçek v Switzerland (App. 27510/08). “Intolerance” in the context of the definition is closely linked with “violence” and “hatred”, and is intended to mean (and is to be applied to mean) an actively repressive approach rather than simply a strong opposition or dislike. ↩

3. In particular those rights and freedoms listed in Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998. Lawful expression of one’s beliefs, for example advocating for changes to the law by Parliament, exercising the right to protest, or expressing oneself in art, literature, and comedy, is not extremism. ↩

4. Parliamentary democracy: The UK is a parliamentary democracy which consists of a constitutional monarch as Head of State, who exercises a number of constitutional and ceremonial duties; Parliament, which is the supreme legislative authority with the ability to make or unmake any law; government, which is drawn from and accountable to Parliament; and a judiciary which is independent from government and Parliament. ↩

5. Including the right to vote, the right to join a political party, or the right to stand in elections. ↩