Policy Exchange — Asleep at the Wheel

Policy Exchange is a British conservative think tank based in London. The organisation publishes reports on a wide range of policy areas and has been criticised for its lack of transparency about its funding.

The report

Asleep at the Wheel: An Examination of Gender and Safeguarding in Schools was published on 30 March 2023. The report focuses on schools, not institutions in general. According to its authors, many schools do not routinely inform parents when a child reports gender distress, sex-separated facilities are under pressure, and views on gender identity are presented as facts in lessons.

Why it is on this list

The report is cited in the debate about how to deal with gender distress at school. It comes from a think tank with a clear political orientation and is therefore not a neutral government evaluation; its conclusions are controversial. The link leads to the publication page containing the full report. See also young people and international developments.

The think tank

Policy Exchange was founded on 29 April 2002 by Nick Boles, Francis Maude and Archie Norman. The organisation is a registered charity and describes itself as independent and non-partisan. Its director is Dean Godson, a member of the House of Lords. The criticism of its funding is specific: in 2016, Transparify described the think tank as highly opaque, and in November 2022 Who Funds You gave it the lowest rating for transparency about its funders. In October 2022, Policy Exchange launched its own unit to investigate how what the think tank calls gender identity theory affects the public sector. According to trade publication Civil Society, the Charity Commission opened an investigation in November 2025 into the think tank’s compliance with the rules, following a complaint by the Good Law Project.

Author, foreword and figures

The report was written by Lottie Moore, then head of Equality and Identity at Policy Exchange. The foreword was signed by a group of parliamentarians, including two former Education Ministers, Nadhim Zahawi and Baroness Morris, and Robin Walker, chair of the House of Commons Education Committee. Two figures from the report are cited most often. According to the author, only 28 per cent of schools reliably inform parents when a child reports gender distress. The same issue is playing out in the United States, where a school district in Nevada requires staff to inform parents when a pupil transitions. And at least 28 per cent of schools are said to no longer have toilets separated by sex. The report further states that an affirming approach is common in schools and that external organisations promote their views within the Department for Education and in schools. How advocacy groups in the Netherlands influence lessons about gender is explained on genderlobby.nl.

How to assess this source

The figures come from the think tank’s own research and have not been replicated by an independent body. Therefore, consult the report itself to see how the data was collected before adopting the percentages. The report aligns with the work of campaign groups such as Safe Schools Alliance UK. For the British context, the Cass Review is also relevant; it was published a year later and likewise addresses social transition.