Face the facts: the ACYS briefing series

Face the facts was the clearinghouse's briefing series for people who had to make a decision quickly: each package came in two parts, a Snapshot that set out the issue and the figures at a glance, and a Briefing that took the same subject apart - the factors behind the numbers, what policy was doing about them and what was expected next.

The packages held here are the published ones, with the figures as they stood when each was written. That is the point of keeping them: a Snapshot is a dated statement of what was measurable about a subject, and read years later it shows both what the evidence said and which questions nobody could answer yet. Several of the packages were quoted in policy work at the time, which makes them primary material rather than commentary.

Nothing in this section is being released or updated. The series ended with the organisation that produced it, the subscription notice that once sat on the announcement page is closed, and topics the clearinghouse listed as forthcoming never appeared. Where a package cites a source, the source is named in it and is usually still findable. Write to the editors of the archive about anything in this section.

This archive section was last reviewed on 27 September 2026.