Social media use

Buckinghamshire Council uses social media to share news and information with residents and interact with the online community. We have Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts which are run by the Communications Team, and other service area accounts which are managed by department staff, for example Community Safety and Libraries.

Our social media pages are monitored between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding Bank Holidays. We try and reply to every message we receive but, due to high volumes, this is not always possible. Our responses to replies, comments and direct messages depend on the individual service. Even if we do not reply, we are listening and will act on or pass on your comments as appropriate. In most cases, it will be better to contact the service directly via our website.

During emergencies and times of disruption we'll post messages outside of our normal hours, but we may not be able to reply to individual queries.

Any retweets, follows, or likes are not an endorsement of a service, individual or organisation. We do not take responsibility for any content on pages or profiles we have shared.

Our social media accounts are managed by real people. We strive to be helpful and understand your frustrations. Be respectful. Abuse will not be tolerated.

We reserve the right to remove, without notice, any disruptive, offensive or abusive posts. We also reserve the right to block a user if their interactions are offensive.

This could include:

• abusive language, or swearing
• messages that are offensive, libellous, sexually orientated or racially offensive, unlawful, profane, threatening or obscene
• promotions or advertisements of products or services
• spam (the same message posted many times, otherwise known as 'spamming', persistent negative and/or abusive tweeting in which the aim is to provoke a response)
• controversial, irrelevant and off topic messages otherwise known as 'trolling' 

In the event of unacceptable behaviour we will endeavour to first issue a written warning, but we reserve the right to take action without notice. If unacceptable behaviour continues or is extreme the user will be blocked from interacting with us on social media. After one month the owner of the account can appeal the decision to block.

Social media is not the appropriate avenue for raising an official complaint with Buckinghamshire Council. View our complaints information, or contact the service direct.