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The Statute Law Database is a project of the Statutory Publications Office (SPO), an office
within the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA). It has a long and chequered history,
reaching back to 1991 when the initial project was started. Until recently little information was
released about the project, though regular assurances were given as to its progress and, since
1995, as to it being publicly available 'next year'. Now, finally, it is a reality.
The SLD data is tagged in XML describing each document's properties (metadata), the
structure of its content (parts, sections etc) and, most importantly, also identifying all
amendments since original publication: amendment date, commencement/repeal dates,
amending instrument citations, etc. Each document thus includes a complete history and
enables a view of the document at any point in time (from 1 February 1991) to be generated,
with annotations indicating the authority for the amendments incorporated.
On 15 March 1999 it was reported in Hansard that:
"The partially updated database is presently available to a number of users within central
government who have access to the Statutory Publications Office Intranet. The Lord
Chancellor’s Department are considering options for the future marketing of the Statute Law
Database. These options include free Internet access, the granting of non-exclusive licences
to legal information publishers and the provision of a subscription on-line service."
In September 1999 a demonstration version of the SLD was made available on the Syntegra
Track Record website, containing legislation for the years 1985 to 1995, though this soon
disappeared.
Subsequent references do not explain why the system was not soon made public but simply
that the database was being brought up to date (an unending project of course) and was soon
to be made available to the Government Legal Service. However, the whole project was
revisited and in May 2004 TSO announced that it was working with the DCA to modernise the
SLD, with Computacenter providing the underlying infrastructure.
The modernisation programme had four main objectives:
The Government Service enquiry system (ie web interface) was developed against specific user
requirements drawn up by representatives from (typically) the Government Legal Service, the
judiciary and law librarians. The web facility has also been designed to meet the requirements
of those with special needs and close attention has been paid to producing a facility that meets
government standards for accessibility. Regarding the enquiry system for the general public,
requirements have been based on feedback received over a number of years by the SPO
Helpdesk from a range of non-government bodies and individuals.
Completeness
Some 75 Acts — many substantial — remain to be loaded on the SLD. Further, the effects of
much 2002 to 2005 legislation and all 2006 legislation are not yet consolidated. Nor are
pre-2001 SIs yet loaded. It is understood this work will be completed by the end of the year
when the SLD will be launched. It is not essential that the SLD is complete before launch as it
already delivers far more value than the free public access alternatives available. However, if
it is significantly incomplete, it is likely to be compared unfavourably with the commercial
alternatives.
Hyperlinking
An important part of statute law research is the following up of references to other legislation.
The SLD links only a few such cross-references in the annotations (and the criteria for those
selected for markup is not clear). It would be a huge improvement if every reference to another
piece of legislation were hyperlinked. This need not be a burdensome task: hard-coded links
are not required; as demonstrated by a number of publishers (including ourselves), it is possible
with a good degree of accuracy to recognise statutory citations and mark them up on the fly.
Addressability
One can go to the SLD site and find what one is looking for reasonably quickly. However, one
of the fundamental principles of the web (one of Engelbart’s Requirements) is that 'every object
that someone might validly want/need to cite should have an unambiguous address (capable
of being portrayed in a manner as to be human readable and interpretable)'.
In the context of the SLD such an address would be constructed from the legislation type, year
and number. It is currently only possible to address a piece of legislation by its system ID (the
Active Text Document ID). So in order to link to a piece of legislation one needs to find the
appropriate provision on the SLD and cut and paste the URL including the document ID. But
the system can readily map a query for a particular type-year-number to its document ID, and
such a system of addressing should be implemented. Then anyone wishing to link to the SLD
could do so 'blind'.
The consolidation, annotation and XML tagging of the statute law is what the DCA regards as
its added value (ie over and above what it is required to do) and as such the SLD is specifically
excluded by example from OPSI's PSI licensing. You can see the Guidance on the OPSI site
at www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/reproduction-of-legislation.htm
— Reproduction of United Kingdom, England, Wales and Northern Ireland Primary and
Secondary Legislation, specifically para 15.
In line with this position, the SLD at present contains the following copyright notice:
"The Statute Law Database and the material on the SLD website are subject to Crown copyright
protection. The Crown copyright waiver that applies to published legislation generally does not
apply to SLD because it is a value-added product. Any reuse of material from SLD will be the
subject of separate and specific licensing arrangements. No such arrangements have yet been
entered into. Users should not therefore reproduce or reuse any material from SLD until further
guidance is issued."
The SPO is currently developing a commercial strategy, working with Partnerships UK, in line
with the Treasury’s Wider Markets Initiative which is designed to encourage appropriate
commercial activity to ensure that public bodies make the most effective use of their assets.
The SPO is also endeavouring to secure commercial partnerships with private sector legal
publishers for exploitation of the data. The current position is believed to be that government
users will have full and free access and those accessing the public version will not be charged
for retrieval of the current in-force versions. It is understood that final decisions concerning
access to historical or 'point-in-time' views and as to re-use have not been made yet.
Any suggestion that the public might be charged for access to the SLD has aroused heated
debate. As Jonathan Mitchell QC argued last year:
"In a free society, it is wrong that people should have to pay to find out about the laws that bind
them. … I draw no distinction between historical texts of legislation that was passed by
Parliament and later texts that are produced today or were produced at some intermediate date.
The public’s interest in both cases is identical: it is in the law that governs or governed them on
the date that matters — it is not necessarily anything to do with the date on which the legislation
was passed." (See the Scottish Parliament, Subordinate Legislation Committee, 25 January 2005, at
www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/subleg/or-05/su05-0302.htm.
What of re-use then? There are any number of ways the DCA could charge for commercial
re-use. But if the SLD comes up to scratch — ie, as advertised, is the definitive, reliable,
up-to-date repository of consolidated primary and unconsolidated secondary legislation —
commercial publishers will think twice about substantial re-use and repurposing of the data.
Instead they will link extensively to the SLD and/or frame SLD provisions alongside their own
annotations and commentary.
Nick Holmes is a publishing consultant specialising in the legal sector and is Managing Director
of Information for Lawyers Limited. He is one of the UK's leading commentators on the
development of online legal information and resources for lawyers on the internet.
Nick blogs on legal information issues at www.binarylaw.co.uk and he manages the infolaw UK
legal web portal at www.infolaw.co.uk.
Email nickholmes@infolaw.co.uk.
Back to Contents.
The Statute Law Database - finally a reality
by Nick HolmesWhat is the Statute Law Database?
The SLD is a database of UK legislation containing the texts of all Acts that were in force on 1
February 1991, and all Acts and printed Statutory Instruments passed since then. It also
contains local legislation, both primary and printed secondary. The SPO editorial team
maintains the database by adding new legislation and applying the effects of amending
legislation using a specially-designed editorial system. For end users, access to the SLD is
enabled with an enquiry system that provides a historical view of primary legislation for any
specific day from the base date of 1 February 1991 and any prospective legislation. Although
secondary legislation is not being consolidated, the enquiry system facilitates the identification
of any legislation that amends or repeals it.Why is it 10 years late?
Hansard reveals (HC Hansard, 17 July 2001) that development of the SLD was contracted to
Syntegra Ltd (a BT company, previously Secure Information Systems Ltd) and the project was
delivered in November 1993, though not formally accepted until Summer 1995, at a cost of
£700,000. It is not clear what was delivered at that time, nor what happened to the project for
the next few years.The final mile
The Government Service enquiry system was launched on 31 May 2006 and the pilot for the
public version is now under way. This is in three phases. Phase 1 included a very limited
number of test users and is now complete. Phase 2 completed on 7 September and included
a larger number of test users drawn from "stakeholders" with a particular interest in the
development of legal information. I was one. Phase 3 will include over 100 test users, following
which the DCA will evaluate all responses, modify the SLD accordingly and publish the final
public version. Public release is now scheduled for December 2006.How does it shape up?
As a Phase 2 test user, I’ve been favoured with access to the SLD as it currently stands. Does
it measure up to my expectations? Here are the substantial issues in my view:Free access to the laws that bind us?
The DCA is reserving its position on rights to access and re-use the SLD which it regards as
a 'value added product' for which it must, according to the Treasury, attempt to recoup its
outlay.