To open an organisation page for editing, select the ‘More’ tab and then ‘Departments and agencies’. Select your organisation from the list.

You can:

• edit the content on your organisation page
• feature specific content items
• add or edit corporate information pages

To edit your organisation page, select the ‘Details’ tab, scroll down and click the ‘Edit’ button.

Add a default image for news articles

You need to include a default image for your organisation that will appear if an editor publishes a news story without an image.

1. Under ‘Select an image to be shown by default on news articles’ click on the ‘Choose file’ button.

2. Select a jpeg, gif or png file of a generic photo that reflects your organisation, at 960 pixels wide and 640 pixels high, minimum 75 dpi.

Email address

You need to include an email address so the public can order attachments in alternative formats.

Status on GOV.UK

There are several options for setting your organisation’s status including:

• ‘Currently live’
• ‘Coming soon’
• ‘Exempt from joining’
• ‘Currently transitioning’
• ‘Closed’

When your organisation goes live on GOV.UK, change the status to ‘Currently live’. Once your organisation is live do not change the status or your organisation will disappear from GOV.UK.

Associations

Under ‘Associations’ you need to select your ‘Sponsoring organisation/s’.

Once your basic organisation page is set up you have the option to include ‘Featured links’.

If you have ‘managing editor’ permissions you can choose from 2 layout options for your homepage:

• ‘news priority’ (formerly ‘top tasks’)
• ‘service priority’ (formerly ‘featured services and guidance’)

How to choose the right layout for your organisation page

You should choose the layout that best meets the needs of your users. You can use Google Analytics to find out what people come to your homepage to do. For example:

• a high percentage of searches from your organisation page indicates the current format isn’t meeting needs - check what terms users are searching for
• if your page is news-based but a high proportion of users are clicking on featured links, you might consider whether a service-based page would work better for your users
• if your page is service-based and there’s evidence of high numbers of users clicking further down the page, a news-based page might meet your users’ needs better

If you do not have much new content to feature in the feature boxes, this could be because your organisation has an emphasis on services.

How to change the layout of your organisation page

To change the layout of your organisation page, select the ‘Details’ tab, scroll down and click the ‘Edit’ button.

Under ‘Position of featured links on organisation homepage’, select the radio button above the image which shows the layout you want to use. Under ‘Featured links’ complete or edit the ‘Title’ and ‘Url’ fields. To add more featured links, click on ‘Add another’.

The ‘news priority’ layout can have up to 5 featured links. The ‘service priority’ layout can have up to 10 featured links.

Only managing editors can add or edit featured links.

‘News priority’ homepage layout

‘News priority’ featured links are the main things users come to your organisation to do that are not covered by existing content on your pages.

Select featured links based on evidence of use

‘News priority’ featured links must be used sparingly and only kept if you have evidence from Google Analytics that users are using them.

As a guide, each ‘news priority’ featured link should be followed by at least 2% of total visitors to your organisation page (measured in total unique pageviews).

‘News priority’ featured links should point to:

• GOV.UK ‘Services and information’ (or ‘mainstream’) content
• information or tools on other domains
• publications that are heavily used

The text of the link must be as specific and active as possible, and not overlap with titles used for ‘corporate’ content types.

You can create links to information that’s not on GOV.UK if there’s evidence of user demand, for example the Ministry of Defence links to the army, navy and Royal Air Force sites.

What should not go in the ‘news priority’ featured links area

Do not put anything in the top tasks list that’s already covered by a link on your organisation’s homepage. This includes:

• detailed guidance
• high profile groups
• contact information (for press offices or other bodies)
• lists of ministers
• links to all press releases or announcements
• links to all statistics and research
• blogs and social media (these can be personalised under ‘follow us’, or calls to action added to relevant policies or publication pages)
• working for us
• procurement
• our priorities

Only use ‘news priority’ featured links to promote microsites or campaign sites when there is clear evidence of demand.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) may remove any links that do not meet the standard. If you’re not sure what these links should be, ask GDS for content advice via the GOV.UK Support form.

‘Service priority’ homepage layout

The ‘service priority’ layout is for organisations that have very little (if any) news, publishing or policy activity, but a high volume of users with very specific, service-oriented needs.

You’ll need to ask GDS to be able to use featured services and guidance proposing the text and URLs for up to 10 links.

Choosing the links

When choosing links, consider:

• what users are searching for from your organisation page
• routing users to specialist browse pages (if you have them)
• the top tasks from your existing organisation page
• most popular content based on page views
• user feedback comments
• frequent contact centre queries
• balancing mainstream and specialist user needs
• seasonal trends (for example applications for study visas or fishing rod licences)

GDS content designers can help you with choosing the links and the wording based on users’ needs.

Feature content on your organisation page to draw attention to current stories or important publications or announcements. Any items you feature must include an image.

You can feature up to 6 pieces of content (for example collections, detailed guides, news articles, publications, speeches, consultations) on an organisation page.

It’s possible not to feature any content if there’s nothing current published by your organisation.

You can only feature published content.

You can feature:

• content items that exist within the ‘Departments and policy’ area of GOV.UK
• press releases and announcements
• topical events
• blog posts
• alerts
• campaigns
• services
• careers
• content not on GOV.UK, but with a .gov.uk domain

Feature content on GOV.UK

1. On your organisation page, select the ‘Features’ tab.

2. Search for the document you want to feature.

3. Click on the ‘Feature’ button next to the document you’d like to feature.

4. Select a 960 pixels wide and 640 pixels high image to be shown on your organisation page with this feature - read the guidance on how to choose an image.

Feature content not on GOV.UK

1. On your organisation page, select the ‘Features’ tab.

2. Scroll down to the ‘Feature new offsite link’ section.

3. Click on ‘Create an offsite link’.

4. Complete the title, summary, type and URL fields and click Save.

5. Click on the ‘Feature’ button next to the external page you’d like to feature.

6. Select a 960 pixels wide and 640 pixels high image to be shown on your organisation page with this feature - read the guidance on how to choose an image.

Unfeature and edit content

You can change the order of or unfeature featured content. The first piece of content you feature will be the most prominent.

Change the order of featured content

1. On your organisation page, select the ‘Features’ tab.

2. Click and drag an item up or down in the list.

3. When you’re done setting the order, click ‘Save ordering’.

Unfeature content

1. On your organisation page, click on the ‘Features’ tab.

2. Click ‘Unfeature’ to remove featured content from your organisation page.

‘What we do’ is the short summary of your organisation’s responsibilities that appears on your organisation page.

To edit the text:

1. Select the ‘Corporate Information’ tab.

2. Click on ‘About us’.

3. Click on ‘Create new edition to edit’.

4. When you’ve made your edits submit for review.

1. On your organisation page, select the ‘Contacts’ tab.

2. Edit, add or delete contact details.

Contact details are shown in the order you add them.

You must add a Freedom of Information contact, which must be shown on your organisation page.

Add other contacts (not for your organisation page) that appear frequently in your news and other documents. You’ll be able to pull these in from the list you create here.

1. On your organisation page, select the the ‘More’ tab. Click on ‘Social media accounts’.

2. Edit, add or delete social media accounts for your organisation.

They will appear on your organisation page under the ‘Follow us’ heading.

Social media accounts are shown in the order you add them.

Adding translated versions of social media accounts

You can add translated versions of social media accounts if your organisation page has translated versions.

To do this:

1. Select ‘Departments & agencies’ from the ‘More’ tab and click on your organisation
2. Click the ‘Social media accounts’ tab from the horizontal menu under the organisation name - if the tab is not there, click the ‘More’ tab to find it
3. For each social media link, click the edit button for the translated version (for example, ‘edit Italian’)
4. Edit the URL (if there’s a different URL for the non-English version) and title in the relevant fields and click ‘Save’

If a translation is not added for a social media account, the English title and URL will be displayed instead.

To find out how to create people see guidance on People and roles.

Once you’ve created your organisation’s people, you can go to ‘People’ under the ‘More’ tab and drag people’s names up and down to reorder them.

You can change the number of people photos that appear on an organisation page under ‘Our management’.

1. Select ‘Edit’ for the organisation.
2. Change the number in the ‘Number of important members of the management team’ drop down menu.
3. Select ‘Save’.

1. On your organisation page, select the ‘Corporate information pages’ tab.

2. Add new corporate information pages as needed - you can only use each type once.

The pages you can add to your organisation page are:

• About our services
• Accessible documents policy
• Complaints procedure
• Equality and diversity, to show how the organisation meets its equality responsibilities
• Media enquiries
• Membership
• Modern slavery statement
• Office access and opening times
• Our energy use, links to the organisation’s energy use data (generally central headquarters)
• Our governance, describes the boards and committees that run the organisation
• Petitions and campaigns
• Personal information charter, for standards followed by organisations when asking for information
• Procurement offers information for potential suppliers
• Publication scheme lists the information the organisation routinely makes available
• Research at x lists areas of research and analysis
• Social media use
• Statistics at x includes a forward look at releases and explains how the organisation compiles stats
• Welsh language scheme for organisations providing services in Wales
• Working for x provides direct links to job listings and any relevant recruitment or HR policies

These pages will be listed on your organisation page automatically.

You cannot add attachments directly to corporate information pages. You’ll need to publish the attachment on a publication page type then hyperlink to it from the corporate information page.

To add a translated version of your organisation page, in the ‘Corporate Information’ tab select ‘Translations’ in the ‘More’ dropdown menu. Then choose the language that you’ll be adding the translation for and click the ‘Create translation’ button.

You need to add a translation of the:

• organisation name
• organisation acronym (if you use one)
• logo formatted name

View an example of a translated organisation page.

The translated name will appear on all Whitehall content translated into the same language.

Add content to a translated organisation page

Documents that have been translated and tagged to your department will appear on the translated organisation page in date order as they are published.

To feature content, select the ‘Features [language]’ tab. You can feature content in the same way as featuring content on an organisation page.

The other types of content you can add to your translated organisation page are:

• corporate information
• people
• contacts

These pages will be listed automatically if they have a translation.

Add featured links in other languages to a translated organisation page

You can edit the featured links that show at the top of your translated organisation page.

This means your featured links can be, for example, Welsh language pages on the Welsh version of your organisation page.

To do this:

1. Under the ‘More’ tab in Whitehall (top right-hand corner of the page), select ‘Departments & agencies’.
2. Select your organisation.
3. Click ‘More’ on the horizontal menu bar under your organisation’s name and select ‘Translations’.
4. Select the translated version you want to edit in the ‘Locale’ column.
5. Under ‘Featured links’, edit the title and URL of each link. You can also remove or add further links.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ‘Save’ when you’re done. The new links should show straight away on the live page.

If you do not change the featured links, the English versions will show instead.

Organisations should never be deleted from GOV.UK. Instead, the status of an organisation can be changed to ‘closed’.

Organisations marked as closed are not listed on the organisations index and disappear from the parent or sponsor department’s organisation page. But they continue to have a profile page findable at the same URL, with a statement indicating they’re closed.

Closed organisation profiles will remain findable by external search engines and the internal site search, and remain listed as a filter option, for example when filtering by organisation on the list of all government publications.

Documents tagged to the organisation

All documents tagged to the organisation will stay tagged after it closes, so the context of who published it is retained.

You might need to re-tag some documents so they’re tagged to both the closing and new organisation, for example if the closing organisation is being replaced, merging or changing its name.

Only re-tag a document to the new organisation if the content is still current - for example, guidance or policy should still be followed. Keep the document tagged to the closing organisation too.

To get an idea of what you need to re-tag, you can export a list of your organisation’s published documents and what content type they are. In the ‘Documents’ section of Whitehall Publisher, filter by your organisation name and select ‘Export as CSV’.

GDS recommend re-tagging these document formats to the new organisation:

• detailed guides
• ‘guidance’ publications
• forms
• manuals
• research and analysis
• fatality notices
• independent reports
• correspondence - unless directly associated with a previous minister
• maps
• decisions
• case studies
• international treaties

You should only re-tag the following formats to the new organisation if the content will be updated by the new organisation:

• national statistics
• statistical releases
• transparency data
• open consultations

These formats should not be re-tagged to the new organisation:

• news articles
• press releases
• annual reports
• transparency data
• statistics
• closed consultations
• documents in history mode

There may be exceptions to the list of formats that should not be re-tagged - for example:

• things that are heavily used, like recent news articles
• an announcement of something that has not yet happened
• history mode published in the wrong format

Ask GDS if:

• you do not know what to re-tag to the new organisation
• there are too many documents to re-tag manually - GDS can bulk re-tag

How to close an organisation

1. Click on the ‘More’ tab and then ‘Departments and agencies’. Select your organisation name from the list.

2. Change its ‘Status on GOV.UK’ from ‘Currently live’ to ‘Closed’.

3. Under the ‘Reason for closure’ menu that appears, choose one of these:

• no longer exists
• replaced
• split into parts
• merged with another organisation
• change of name
• no longer part of central government
• devolved to regional government

If your organisation is being taken over by another organisation, enter the name of the organisation taking over from (superseding) your organisation.

Choose the date the organisation closed.

What a closed organisation page will look like

There are different options in Whitehall publisher for describing ‘closed’ organisations, each of which generates slightly different wording for users.