Position Register

A standing record of what your organisation has said publicly on the issues that matter, when, where and why, so any new statement can be checked against the old ones before a journalist does it for you.

Keep in mind The register only knows what you paste, so every position and proposed answer needs confirming by the person who owns that position before anyone relies on it.

Version 1.1 · Updated 30 October 2026

The prompt

Get this as a skill. Install it in Claude, and the check is ready whenever you paste in a draft and your register. Get the skill

You'll need 6 things to fill the gaps

Your organisation and sector
Who owns the register
The issues to cover
Who owns each position
Red lines and fixed wording
Past public statements, each with its date and channel

Help me build the first version of a position register: a record of what our organisation has said publicly on the issues that matter, so new statements can be checked against old ones.

What I know so far:
- Organisation: [WHO WE ARE AND OUR SECTOR]
- Owner of the register: [ROLE OR NAME]
- Issues to cover: [THE ISSUES WE ARE ASKED ABOUT OR CRITICISED ON, OR COULD BE IF THINGS WENT WRONG]
- Who owns each position: [WHO DECIDED OR OWNS OUR POSITION ON EACH ISSUE, OR "NOT KNOWN"]
- Red lines and fixed wording: [WHAT WE WILL NOT SAY, AND ANY APPROVED WORDING, OR "NONE WRITTEN DOWN"]
- Source material: [PASTE PAST STATEMENTS, RELEASES, QUOTES AND POSTS, EACH WITH ITS DATE AND CHANNEL]

Produce, in this order:
1. Register header: organisation, owner of the register, review cadence, last reviewed.
2. The register: a table with the columns Issue | Current position | Approved wording | First stated | Last stated | Where | Why we hold it | Changed from | Owner | Status. Status is Live, Under review or Retired.
3. Entry detail for each issue where the history matters, with these headings: What we say now; What we said before; What we will not say; Likely challenge; Evidence; Related positions.
4. Inconsistencies: every place where two statements in the material differ, quoting both with their dates.

Rules for this register:
- It is a record. Quote wording exactly as it went out, with its date and channel, however it reads now.
- Take dates, channels and reasons only from the material. Where it does not say why a position is held, write "reason not recorded". Do not infer a reason.
- Where statements contradict each other, record both. Do not decide which is the real position: mark the row Under review and say who needs to decide.
- Keep earlier positions in "Changed from"; never overwrite them.
- For Likely challenge, write the question a journalist or critic would ask, and a proposed answer that uses only the current position and its evidence, labelled as a proposal for the position owner to approve.
- If an issue has no public statement in the material, say so and leave the position blank. Do not write one.
- Leave out legal advice and board deliberations, even if they are in the material, and say that you have.

How to work:
- Treat what I have given you as my account, not verified evidence. Keep my facts exactly as I stated them: "requested" is not "under way", and "proposed" is not "decided".
- Do not invent facts, names, dates, quotes, research findings, benchmarks, approvals or commitments. Do not estimate numbers (audience sizes, costs, budget splits, targets, results) unless I have given you the basis for them.
- Mark anything you have assumed [Assumed: what you assumed] and anything missing [Confirm: what is needed]. Use only these two marks, plus any others this prompt names, and every mark says what it refers to, even in a table cell. Where a whole table or list rests on one assumption, say so once above it.
- You can propose ideas, tactics and wording, but label them as proposals. Never present a proposal as something we have already done or decided.
- If I ask you to say something the facts above do not support (such as a safety claim, an endorsement, a guarantee or a statistic), leave it out and flag it at the top.
- Treat an unfilled gap in [CAPITALS], a day of the week, or a month without a year as unknown.
- Use UK English and plain language. When the facts are thin, write less.

Start with one line: "Ready for review", or "Not ready to use" followed by up to three things blocking it.

Finish with two short sections:
Questions for you: the 3 to 5 answers that would most improve this draft, most important first.
Check before use: the checks that could affect accuracy, safety, legality or the decision to use this, most important first. Do not list every minor assumption.

Fill the highlighted gaps before you send it, or answer them in the chat. Check your organisation's AI policy before pasting personal or confidential details into an AI tool.

What you'll get

The opening of a worked example. Anonymised and shortened; yours will follow your inputs.

Fictional example: the positions, wording and figures below are illustrative.

Organisation: Fernbrook Water, a regional water company
Owner of the register: Head of Corporate Affairs
Review cadence: Quarterly, and on any change

Issue	Current position	Approved wording	First stated	Last stated	Where	Why we hold it	Changed from	Owner	Status
Storm overflow discharges	Discharges are a legacy design issue; we are investing to reduce them and publish our data	"We publish every discharge within an hour and we are spending [£X] to reduce them by [date]"	Mar 2023	Aug 2026	Annual report, website, CEO interviews	Regulator requirement; transparency reduces the trust gap	Pre-2023: "operating within permits", retired after our March 2023 board review of discharge reporting	Director of Environment	Live
Executive pay	Bonuses are linked to environmental performance and were reduced in [year]	"No executive bonus was paid for [year]"	Jun 2024	Jul 2026	Remuneration report, press statement	Board decision, June 2024	Pre-2024: no public comment beyond the report	Chair of RemCo	Live
Hosepipe restrictions	Restrictions are a last resort and are announced at least [N] days ahead	(none approved; use the position)	Jul 2022	Jun 2025	Press releases, customer emails	Customer research on notice periods	No change	Head of Customer	Live

Entry detail: Storm overflow discharges
What we said before: "We operate within our permits" (2019 to early 2023). Retired after our March 2023 board review because it was accurate and still read as evasive.
Likely challenge: "You said you were within your permits for years. What changed?" Answer: the permits allowed more than the public would…

See the full example

Human review checklist

Is every quoted wording verbatim, with a date and channel you could produce if asked?
Has the owner of each position confirmed the current line?
Are changes of position recorded as changes, with the old position kept alongside the new one?
Is “why we hold it” written for every live position, or marked as not recorded?
Are red lines specific enough that a colleague could apply them without asking?
Does the register cover what critics ask as well as what the organisation likes to talk about?
Is the review date set and in someone’s diary?
Is the register stored where the people who need it before a call can find it?
Has anything confidential (legal advice, board deliberation) been kept out, or held in a restricted version?

Go deeper

Variations

Check a new draft

Use this when a statement on a registered issue is about to go out.

Instead of building the register, check this draft statement against the register entries I have pasted as source material: [PASTE THE DRAFT STATEMENT]. For each issue the draft touches, report: whether it matches the current position; any line that contradicts, or could be read as contradicting, an earlier statement still in the public domain; any red line it crosses; and any claim that goes further than the approved wording. Quote the register line and the draft line side by side. If the draft touches an issue with no entry, write NO ENTRY for that issue and do not infer a position. Label any wording you suggest as a proposal for the position owner.

Reporter call

Use this when a journalist is about to call about an issue in the register.

Instead of the full register, prepare me for a call from [THE JOURNALIST'S OUTLET] about [THE ISSUE], using only the register entry and statements above. Give me: our position in one sentence; the two most likely questions, with proposed answers consistent with the entry; anything we said before that they may quote back, and how to handle it; and one thing I should not say. If the entry has no approved wording or no owner, say so at the top.

Full example output

Example output

Anonymised and shortened. Real outputs will vary based on your inputs.

Fictional example: the positions, wording and figures below are illustrative.

Organisation: Fernbrook Water, a regional water company Owner of the register: Head of Corporate Affairs Review cadence: Quarterly, and on any change

Issue	Current position	Approved wording	First stated	Last stated	Where	Why we hold it	Changed from	Owner	Status
Storm overflow discharges	Discharges are a legacy design issue; we are investing to reduce them and publish our data	”We publish every discharge within an hour and we are spending [£X] to reduce them by [date]“	Mar 2023	Aug 2026	Annual report, website, CEO interviews	Regulator requirement; transparency reduces the trust gap	Pre-2023: “operating within permits”, retired after our March 2023 board review of discharge reporting	Director of Environment	Live
Executive pay	Bonuses are linked to environmental performance and were reduced in [year]	“No executive bonus was paid for [year]“	Jun 2024	Jul 2026	Remuneration report, press statement	Board decision, June 2024	Pre-2024: no public comment beyond the report	Chair of RemCo	Live
Hosepipe restrictions	Restrictions are a last resort and are announced at least [N] days ahead	(none approved; use the position)	Jul 2022	Jun 2025	Press releases, customer emails	Customer research on notice periods	No change	Head of Customer	Live

Entry detail: Storm overflow discharges What we said before: “We operate within our permits” (2019 to early 2023). Retired after our March 2023 board review because it was accurate and still read as evasive. Likely challenge: “You said you were within your permits for years. What changed?” Answer: the permits allowed more than the public would accept; we chose to publish and to invest. Do not defend the old line. What we will not say: Any comparison with other companies’ discharge figures; any completion date not in the business plan.

The template

Register header

Organisation: [Name] Owner of the register: [Role and name] Review cadence: [Quarterly, or after any change of position] Last reviewed: [Date]

The register

Issue	Current position (one or two sentences)	Approved wording (verbatim, if any)	First stated	Last stated	Where (channels, documents)	Why we hold it	Changed from	Owner	Status
[Issue]	[Position]	[“Quote”]	[Date]	[Date]	[e.g. press release, annual report, CEO LinkedIn]	[Reasoning, evidence, decision reference]	[Earlier position and date, or “no change”]	[Role]	Live / Under review / Retired

Entry detail (one per issue where the history matters)

Issue: [Name] What we say now: [Position, in the words we would use] What we said before: [Earlier positions, dated, with the change and why] What we will not say: [Red lines, claims we cannot substantiate, words we avoid] Likely challenge: [The question a journalist or critic would put, and the answer] Evidence: [Where the proof points live] Related positions: [Other issues this touches; keep them consistent]

Pre-publication check

Before any statement on a registered issue goes out:

Read the entry.
Does the new statement match the current position? If not, is the change deliberate and approved by the owner?
Does it contradict anything under “What we said before” that is still findable?
Does it cross a red line?
Update the entry with the new date and channel once published.

When to use it

What it is

A position register is the institutional memory of a communications function, written down. For each issue that matters, it records the position the organisation currently holds, the wording it has used in public, when and where it said so, why, what changed and who owns it. It exists so that the answer to “what have we said about this before” is quick to find, without an afternoon of searching old releases, and so that a new statement can be checked against the old ones before publication.

By the end you have one document, or one table, that any comms colleague can open before a media call, an executive briefing or a drafting session. It grows one row at a time and is reviewed on a fixed cadence. AI helps in two places: building the first version from your archive, and checking a new draft against the register.

When to use it

Use this template when:

A reporter asks about something the organisation commented on before you joined
You are preparing an executive for questions on a live or recurring issue
A new statement might contradict, or be read as contradicting, an earlier one
A position has changed and the reasoning needs writing down
A new comms lead, agency or spokesperson needs the history quickly
You are building or refreshing your crisis playbook and need the standing lines

Don’t use this template if:

Your organisation has never taken a public position on anything contested (check before you decide this)
You need a live issues log rather than a record of positions; that is the Issue Log Tracker
The register would hold only one issue; a key messages grid is enough

Inputs needed

Before starting, gather:

A list of the issues: what you are asked about, what you have been criticised on, what your sector is arguing about, what could go wrong
For each, the most recent public statement and any earlier ones that differ
The owner of the position (a director or policy lead, for example: whoever decided it)
Any board or executive decision that set or changed the position
Your red lines and fixed wording, if they exist

Tips for success

Start with the ten issues you are asked about most.

A short register with well-evidenced entries gets used. One that attempts everything can stall before it is useful.

Keep the old position.

The value is the history. Overwriting a changed position with the new one recreates the problem the register exists to solve.

Write the challenge.

The entry is not finished until it contains the question a critic would ask and the honest answer. That is the part people reach for under pressure.

Put the check in the workflow.

A register nobody consults before publishing is a document. Add “checked against the position register” to the approval tracker for any statement on a registered issue.

Give it to the AI tool you already use.

Once the register exists, pasting the relevant entry into a drafting session, or storing it as standing context where your tools allow, means every draft starts from what the organisation has already said. On Comms With AI, the short form goes in the Standing positions field of your Foundations profile, and Plan and Message Test then check new work against it.

Common pitfalls

Recording what you wish you had said.

The register records what went out. Quote it as published, however it reads now.

Letting comms own the position.

Comms owns the register. The position belongs to whoever decided it. If no one did, that is the finding.

Confusing positions with key messages.

Key messages are what you want to say. Positions are what you have said and will stand behind when challenged. The register holds the second.

Filling gaps by inference.

If the archive does not say why a position was taken, write that it does not. An invented reason will be repeated in a briefing and then in an interview.

Treating the register as public.

It contains reasoning and red lines. Keep it internal, keep the confidential layer separate, and follow your AI Use Policy before pasting entries into any tool.

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Position Register

What you'll get

Next step

Human review checklist

Go deeper

Variations

Check a new draft

Reporter call

Full example output

Example output

The template

Register header

The register

Entry detail (one per issue where the history matters)

Pre-publication check

When to use it

What it is

When to use it

Inputs needed

Tips for success

Common pitfalls

Related templates

Crisis Response Playbook

Issue Log Tracker

Key Messages Grid

Myth vs Fact Sheet

Proof Points Bank

What next