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Last updated: 23 Oct 2026

whitehall: Roles and Permissions in Whitehall

Actions by permission

Writer means a signed-in user with no extra permissions. "Editor" can refer to Departmental Editor, Managing Editor or GDS Editor. There is also GDS Admin. Every edition-instance check is also blocked by access limiting.

Any signed-in user (Writer)

  • Editions, every type:
    • index, show, new, create, edit, update, revise, diff, destroy, confirm_destroy, update_bypass_id, destroy_bypass_id, features, child_pages, choose_type
    • change_type, change_type_preview, apply_change_type
    • Workflow: submit, unschedule
    • translations, images, tags, world_tags
    • editorial_remarks#new, #create
    • fact_check_requests#new, #create, #index
    • review_reminders#*
    • consultation and call-for-evidence outcome / public_feedback
    • attachments, uploads
    • link_check_reports
    • document_history
  • Collections and worldwide: document collection groups, members and search; worldwide org pages, offices and translations; editionable social media accounts
  • Organisations:
    • index, show, features, about, organisations/people#index, promotional_features#index, #show
    • destroy, confirm_destroy
    • edit/update, organisation_people#reorder/#order and promotional_features (create/edit/destroy/reorder), only for own org or a child org
    • contacts, contact translations, organisation translations, offsite links and promotional feature items for any org
  • People and roles:
    • people: new, create, show, index; edit/update/destroy/reorder for anyone who isn't a PM
    • roles and role appointments: create/edit/update/destroy for non-ministerial roles
    • role and person translations
    • historical accounts
  • Other:
    • topical events (full CRUD, featurings, organisations, about page)
    • world location news (edit, update, translations, offsite links)
    • statistics announcements: everything except unpublishing (create, edit, cancel, date changes, tags, link to publication)
    • policy groups: create and edit
    • features and feature lists
    • users#index, #show; authors#show; dashboard; new_document; more; whats_new; bookmarklets; preview; by-content-id; /export/... downloads; /component-guide

Departmental Editor and above

  • Approval workflow: publish and schedule (not your own submission), reject, force_publish and force_schedule, approve_retrospectively
  • Editions: export and confirm_export
  • Social media accounts on organisations: new, create, edit, update, destroy
  • Ministerial roles and appointments: create, edit, update, destroy

Managing Editor and above

  • Unpublishing and withdrawing: unpublish, unwithdraw, edition_unpublishing#edit/#update
  • statistics_announcement_unpublishings#new, #create
  • Marking an edition as political
  • Featured links for own/child org

GDS Editor

  • Editing any organisation, and managing featured links
  • cabinet_ministers#* (reordering)
  • policy_groups#destroy
  • sitewide_settings#*
  • users#edit, #update
  • Fatality notices for any organisation
  • Any action on historic content; choosing the government for history mode

GDS Admin

Everything a GDS Editor can do on editions, organisations and people, plus:

  • organisations#new, #create, #destroy
  • governments#* (except index, which any user can see), including close
  • edition_access_limited#*
  • edition_change_notes#*
  • editorial_remarks#destroy
  • people#destroy
  • republishing#*, bulk_republishing#*, retagging#*, emergency_banner#*
  • Prime Minister records

Special permissions

  • VIP Editor: current and previous Prime Minister people records
  • Users in a fatality-handling organisation (or GDS Editor): fatality_notices#* except show, and operational_fields#*
  • Unpublish historic content: unpublish on historic editions
  • Sidekiq Admin: /sidekiq
  • The history_page type's organisation (af07d5a5-df63-4ddc-9383-6a666845ebe9): history_page standard editions.