What Should an Intelligence Report Contain?

Executive summary

The reader should understand the principal findings, risks and unresolved questions quickly.

Scope and evidential basis

The report should set out its deliverables, the questions answered, the period covered and any further verification required. Important findings should be linked to evidence that can be tested.

Source-led findings

Facts, source-derived indicators, inferences and allegations should not be mixed together.

Decision relevance

A good report explains what the findings mean for the client decision and what next questions or protections may be proportionate.

Good reporting also controls volume. A decision-maker rarely benefits from every search result collected during an enquiry; the report should organise the material around the questions asked and retain enough sourcing and evidential context for important findings to be tested.

A strong report is auditable. The reader should be able to distinguish what comes directly from a source, what has been independently corroborated, what is analytical inference and what remains unresolved. That separation is particularly important where allegations or adverse information are involved.

What makes an intelligence report useful