Talk:Legislation.gov.uk

Linking within Wikipedia

• Use the following template to link to a statute within the database from within Wikipedia: {{UK-SLD | activeTextDocID | Title of Statute}}
• Use the following template to link to a section or part of a statute within the database from within Wikipedia: {{UKStatute | activeTextDocID | link text}}

Mauls (talk) 13:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC) (EDIT — Richardguk (talk) 07:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC))

Suggested Corrections

Members of the e-Services and Strategy Team in OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) have reviewed the Wikipedia entry for the UK Statute Law Database. As UK Government Civil Servants we have opted to highlight the points here in Talk for the benefit of wikipedians, and suggest some specific changes in order to help increase the accuracy of the page.

1) Under the headings - ‘Development’, ‘1991-1995’:

The current information seen under 1991-1995 about TSO ActiveText and the ‘Enquiry System’ is in the wrong place. TSO were not involved with SLD until 2002.

The existing second paragraph should be re-written and re-located under the heading ‘Development 2001 – 2006’ (see (2) below for new wording)

The existing second paragraph under ‘1991-1995’ should be replaced - we would suggest the following:

“The original database consisted of an editorial system (Interleaf) which allowed legislation to be held and edited in SGML. In 1991 there were no plans to make the database available on the internet. The aim of the project was to create an electronic version of Statutes In Force which would be available on CDROM to much the same audience as that to which Statutes In Force had been available prior to 1991.

In 1995 Syntegra developed the first version of the Statute Law Database website. This was only ever available in pilot form to a limited number of Government users.”

2) Under the headings - ‘Development’, ‘2001 – 2006’

It was under the Statute Law Database modernisation programme that the original SGML Syntegra editorial system was replaced with TSO ActiveText, the information that appears as the second paragraph under ‘1991-1995’ should be moved under ‘2001 – 2006’, to become the second paragraph under ‘2001 – 2006’, and should be amended. We would suggest that it reads as follows:

“The new system uses TSO ActiveText, a content management system to store legislation in XML and with a specific DTD. Documents in ActiveText are fragmented and can be edited using XMetaL which allows editors to check documents in and out of the database for editing. All the legislation from the original SGML database was converted into XML. After the editorial system was completed further development began on a new online Statute Law Database ‘Enquiry System’.”

3) Under the headings - ‘Development’, ‘2001 – 2006’

The pilot rollout of SLD was designed to test the website usability and functionality. It was tested on a wide range of customers including Government users, law librarians, police, Citizens Advice Bureaux and students. The pilot did not specifically include any commercial legal publishers. I suggest ‘primarily commercial legal publishers’ should be removed from the sentence below:

“On 2 August 2006 the Department of Constitutional Affairs commenced with the second stage of the database project by issuing login details and passwords to a number of selected users, primarily commercial legal publishers, so that the system could be tested.”

4) Under the heading - Content

The Statute Law Database is not fully up to date and at the current time it is not possible to give a precise time at which it will be fully up to date. Editors are currently applying effects between 2003 and 2007. Acts are targeted for updating according to a system of priorities based on known demand ascertained mainly from of ‘Webtrends’ reports (showing which Acts are viewed most frequently). We would therefore suggest that the words “and it is intended that all should be fully revised by the end of 2008” should be removed from the first paragraph, second sentence. The following sentence should be added immediately after that sentence:

“Acts are targeted for updating according to a system of priorities based on known demand ascertained mainly from ‘Webtrends’ reports (showing which Acts are viewed most frequently)”

In the next sentence beginning “Until December 2008 …”, the words from “, which incorporated new legislation …” to the end of the sentence do not seem appropriate in this context and should be deleted.

After the sentence “Since that date, responsibility has been transferred to a team within the Information and Policy Services Directorate (formerly called the Office of Public Sector Information) of The National Archives.[14]”

We suggest that some additional information is added:

“Following the transfer a programme of work is now underway to bring together the content of the existing Statute Law Database with ‘as enacted’ original legislation from the OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) website to form a Single UK Legislation website.”

Clare Allison, Legislation Programme Manager
John Sheridan, Head of e-Services and Strategy
Office of Public Sector Information

Johnlsheridan (talk) 15:50, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Clare and John. I have amended the article page accordingly, with minor amendments for style etc.

From your careful exposition above, you are evidently aware of Wikipedia best practice for dealing with a conflict of interest. That said, I would reassure you that, as subject professionals, you have some discretion to make uncontroversial edits, at least where you have set out your proposals on the Talk page in advance, as above.

You might want to consider updating the SLD website to include more information regarding the database's update policy (I don't think it is set out there as clearly as you have explained it above). This would allow this article to cite external sources (Talk pages aren't strictly allowed for references, though I have done so for the time being on grounds of common sense) and of course would assist those who refer directly to your website and are interested in its accuracy and progress. The ideal situation then would be where you can provide us with links which set out or support the facts to be incorporated in future article revisions. In any case, your comments are helpful and welcome.

Once again, thanks for your contribution.

— Richardguk (talk) 07:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

As one of the beta testers, we were all working in our spare time with serious professional lives to keep under control. There were few of us, and time was short, so we attended to functionality. In my use of the system since then, I have found one incoherence which turned out to be a mistranscription of a hand-written text, which was promptly rectified by Kew. I have also recently contacted them over the need to change the cookies administration to reflect the 1.10.2019 ECJ Planet49 decision: if other inaccuracies are spotted, please report them to Kew.

This will be particularly important when we withdraw from the EU, as the terms of withdrawal will leave endless loose ends needing to be swept up in enabling legislation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.247.3 (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

The abbreviations OPSI and SLD are used in the first paragraph under the head "New Statute Law Database". They are defined in the second paragraph. It would be better if these definitions occurred in the first paragraph. Glimfeather (talk) 15:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Name

The name "Statute Law Database" no longer appears on the website. It seems to just be called Legislation.gov.uk -- see for example their FAQs in which they call the site exactly that. I propose a page move. Richard75 (talk) 12:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The database is the rear end, and there was no intent that it be made accessible as such, not least because of the speed hit. As explained, it has 2 interfaces, and there is no reason to change that unless Parliament, in whose care the master repository of law lies, so agrees. The principle purpose was to make the common-law supposition that the common man knows the law at least partially practicable, although the hard reality is that there is so much of it no one man can hope to know it all. Furthermore, it only tells us what the law says: what it means, in practical terms, remains unpublished in Case Law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.247.3 (talk) 00:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Legislation.gov.uk. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091116153722/http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/ to http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070916154531/http://www.number7.demon.co.uk/papers/SLD/SLD.htm to http://www.number7.demon.co.uk/papers/SLD/SLD.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080513032645/http://www.yrtk.org/2006/statute-law-database-launched/ to http://www.yrtk.org/2006/statute-law-database-launched/

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Needs updating, but tagged February 2014?

This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (February 2014)

There were many updates after three years. Does it still need updating? If not, please remove the tag.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 17:57, 22 September 2018 (UTC)