— Institutional support
Sponsorship, and the wall that stands behind it.
Institutions can pay for investigative capacity here — records access, specialist reading, legal review, time. None of it reaches the choice of subjects or the findings. The separation is part of how we work, and it is published so anyone can test it.
- Policy ref
- SPO-01
- Named-funder threshold
- 5% of annual revenue
- Vetting
- Written, before acceptance
- Register
- Public, updated quarterly
No. 01What sponsorship is
It pays for a field. Never for a finding.
A sponsor funds the ability to investigate an area of fraud. It never funds a particular investigation, and there is no route by which a sponsor can get someone covered — or left alone.
Sponsorship pays for
- Capacity in a broad field — investment fraud, authorised push payment scams, pension and romance fraud
- Credit by name in the annual report and on the work it funded
- A published statement of why the sponsor supports the field
- Access to the file for the sponsor’s own staff
- An annual briefing on the field, held only after publication
Sponsorship never buys
- The choice of any person, company or scheme to look into
- Early sight of drafts, findings, publication dates or embargoes
- Any right to answer, comment on or contest editorial conclusions
- Removing, delaying, softening or burying any entry
- Access to unpublished material or to anything about sources
No. 02The firewall
Four separations. Breaking any of them would take a deliberate act.
For a sponsor to influence coverage, a named person would have to knowingly break one of these. That is the point: influence should require misconduct, not mere pressure.
Different desks
Funding relationships are handled by operations. Editors are not told who is in talks to sponsor and take no part in those talks.
No subject-linked money
There is no way to pay for coverage of a named person, company or competitor. Offers framed that way are refused and logged as refused.
Conflict register
Every sponsor is checked against subjects they could plausibly be connected to. A match moves the reporting before it starts and is disclosed on the published entry.
Built to lose a sponsor
No single sponsor may exceed the concentration limit. If one withdraws because of coverage, the work carries on and the withdrawal is reported.
No. 03Who we refuse
Money we will not take, at any price.
Vetting happens before acceptance and is put in writing. A prospective sponsor that fails any of these tests is turned away.
Anyone in the file, together with their owners, directors, solicitors, PR firms and reputation agents. Anyone subject to UK sanctions. Anyone whose real ownership we cannot establish to the standard we would apply to a subject.
Funders who want a voice in which subjects we pick, how they are described, when entries run or how they end. Funders whose main interest appears to be coverage of a competitor. Funders who insist on staying anonymous — a secret sponsor is a conflict by definition.
If a sponsor becomes a subject during the agreement, the conflict is registered publicly, the coverage moves to editors with no link to the relationship, and the sponsorship ends. That sequence is published alongside the resulting entry.
No. 04Process
How a sponsorship is agreed
Five written stages. A summary of the agreement is published, including any condition attached to the money.
IStage 1
Approach
The prospective sponsor sets out in writing which field it wants to support and what its own interest in that field is.
IIStage 2
Vetting
Ownership, sanctions status, litigation and any presence in the file are checked to the standard applied to a subject.
IIIStage 3
Conflict mapping
The sponsor is checked against current and foreseeable subjects. Any match is registered before anything is signed.
IVStage 4
Agreement
Scope, term, amount and the absence of any editorial rights are written down, with the firewall terms built in.
VStage 5
Publication
The sponsorship goes on the public register and into the annual report, with amount, term and conditions.
No. 05Disclosure
What we disclose, and where.
Disclosure is not optional, and it does not depend on whether the relationship looks flattering.
| Situation | Disclosure | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Any sponsorship, of any size | Published | Public sponsor register, updated quarterly |
| Above 5% of annual revenue | Named, with amount | Annual transparency report |
| Any condition attached to funding | Published in full | Sponsor register and annual report |
| Sponsor connected to a published subject | Disclosed on the entry | The affected dossier or report |
| Offer refused on integrity grounds | Reported in total | Annual transparency report |
Fund a field, not a finding.
If you want to support investigative work on investment fraud, payment scams or pension and romance fraud, the conversation starts with the field you care about — and ends with you having no say over what we find.