Method
How we check
Every factual claim here carries the source it came from and the date somebody read it. This page explains what that means in practice, including what happens when we have not checked something.
What counts as a source
A regulation, a board notice, a framework document, a register, or a published statement from the body that holds the remit. Where a question can only be settled by asking, a written enquiry and its answer is a source, and it is stamped as one.
Another site summarising a regulation is not a source. Neither is a training provider describing the rules it operates under, however knowledgeable, because a provider has an interest in the answer.
The four states
Coverage is shown four ways across the site. Two of them look similar and mean entirely different things, so they are worth reading carefully.
- Required
- A duty exists and is enforced
- Some professions
- Applies to named sectors only
- None recorded
- Checked, and there is none
- Not yet checked
- We have not looked at this
None recorded is a finding: somebody looked, and there is nothing. It carries a source, like any other answer. Not yet checked is an admission: we have not looked, and it carries no source at all, because it has not earned one.
Dates and staleness
Regulatory detail changes, and a confident page that is two years out of date is worse than no page. Every claim shows when it was last checked, and a check older than twelve months is marked as due a review rather than quietly left to age.
A date on this site is the date a person read the source. It is not the date the page was published, and it is not the date the file was last edited.
What we will not publish
An unverified regulatory claim, however likely it is to be right. On a subject where being wrong costs somebody a job application or a registration, a plausible answer is not a useful one.
An assessment of whether an institution is doing its job well. This site describes what bodies cover and where their remit stops, and stops there.