Difference between revisions of "Research Tasks/Secondary Effects Research"

Revision as of 12:36, 7 February 2023

Background and Object of Secondary Effects Research

Background

From the beginning of 2012 onwards we have simultaneously captured effects against both primary and secondary legislation for each newly published affecting document using the Identify Effects and Record Effects preparation tasks (the blue tasks) on the editorial system.

Before 2012, since we were not at that stage updating secondary legislation, we did not hold any secondary effects data in our TOES database. In order to allow us to start updating secondary legislation we had to extract this effects data from the SI Bound Volumes (BVs) by scanning their tables of secondary effects, digitising this data and uploading it to our TOES database. We currently have secondary effects data on UK SIs going back to 1973. Secondary effects data for NI SRs however currently only goes back to 2007, but work is in the pipeline to add more NI secondary effects soon.

Since the BVs are a print publication, hampered by considerations of space, the extracted secondary effects are in a very abbreviated “skeleton” format; they are not “granularised” down to the appropriate affected or affecting sub-provision level that we require; and they do not contain the extended TOES details (i.e. type of effect, extent, start date, savings, etc) that we need to “drive” our update tasks.

Object

The object of secondary effects research, therefore, is to take these rudimentary, “skeleton” effects and transform them into our usual record effects “house style” so that we can use them to update secondary legislation.

As such, secondary effects research is almost identical to the record effects and record effects review tasks and the Record Effects Wiki guidance applies to it. However, bear in mind that in most cases there will be no scanned marked up documents in the task to refer to (we only uploaded our scanned handwritten mark up for UK SIs made between 2002 and 2011) and we do not require you to create marked up pdfs. You will be checking the effects against the legislation on legislation.gov.uk.

A group of volunteers from the Practical Law Company (PLC) completed most of the secondary effects research tasks for the 2003-2011 affecting documents a few years ago, but the majority of these tasks are still awaiting review. For documents affecting secondary prior to 2003 both the original secondary effects research task and also review will need to be done.

Carrying out the Secondary Effects Research Task

Search for the affecting document on the editorial system under the category “Research tasks” (the green tasks) and allocate the document to yourself by using the dropdown menu to add your name in the Assign box next to the "“Secondary effects research” task (or “Secondary effects research review” if you are the reviewer). Click Confirm.
Select the task from your dashboard and click on Start Task on the next screen.
Download the System Effects Spreadsheet, open it in Excel and save it to your PC under an appropriate filename. (NB you can ignore the “Download Bound Volume Effects Spreadsheet” button, which is now obsolete. The “Download Stashed Effects Spreadsheet” will only be present if the task has been done by an editor and then returned to them by a reviewer).
Open the affecting document on legislation.gov.uk so that you can use it to check the secondary effects data. You may find it helpful to arrange your screen so that you can see the affecting document and the spreadsheet at the same time, and hide any columns in the spreadsheet that you don't need (such as the Affected Extent, Affected Effects Extent, Affected Territorial Application, Notes, Amendment applied to Database, Suggested Commentary and Appended Commentary):
Check each effect to make sure that it is recorded against the correct affected legislation.
Ensure each effect is “granularised” to the appropriate affected and/or affecting sub-provision level that we would expect for newly recorded effects. You may need to insert rows in order to: (a) split out effects against several affected sub-provisions which have been bundled together under one affected whole provision, or (b) split out multiple effects to one affected provision by several affecting sub-provisions. (NB When inserting new rows, be careful not to copy down the existing key ids in Column A as a duplicated key id will prevent the spreadsheet from uploading later. There is some validation in the spreadsheet to warn you of duplicated ids in column A howing them in red font).
Add or correct the type of effect, extent, territorial application, commencement provision, IF Date, IF Date Qualification, etc, as appropriate for each effect in accordance with our usual Extended TOES practice.
Check for obvious savings/transitional provisions to add to the Savs column as appropriate. Sometimes the BV effects include Savs as part of the affecting provision field or mention them in the type of effect field.
Do a brief check for missing effects, but do not spend hours poring over the document.
Delete any Comments for Editor added during the BV data extraction process where these are now no longer needed.
If any effects are marked with a Y in the "Applied to database" column, check on legislation.gov.uk to see that whether or not the effects have actually been applied. This situation may occur in particular in relation to DWP legislation, some of whose effects were added to TOES before the general bulk upload of secondary effects. If the effect has been applied, leave the Y intact; if not, please remove the Y. (NB You should check at the appropriate PiT for the effect, as it may have been overwritten by later amendments).
NB You do not need to change any effects hitting primary legislation. In fact, you can delete all the primary effects from the spreadsheet as these get discarded on upload of the review task in any case.
When you have completed the secondary effects research task, save your changes and click on the Next Stage button.
Upload your spreadsheet by browsing for it on your PC, selecting the file and then clicking the Upload button.

Example: S.S.I. 1999/64

Here’s The National Health Service (Optical Charges and Payments) (Scotland) Amendment (No.2) Regulations 1999 (S.S.I. 1999/64):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/1999/64/contents/made

Downloaded System Effects

Uploaded researched secondary effects

The changes to the downloaded data are shown in red.

Issues

Be careful with older affecting documents, we've noticed that sometimes the drafter's footnote references have been included in the transcription of the xml as part of the text rather than as a hyperlinked footnote reference. For example, see S.I. 1987/1508, reg. 4:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1987/1508/regulation/4/made

The text in the xml version reads:

"In paragraph (2) of regulation 3(a) ..."

But in fact the reference to "(a)" after "regulation 3" should in fact be a hyperlinked footnote reference to footnote (a): "(a) Regulation 3(2) was amended by S.I. 1984/697, 1985/46 and 1986/427."

See the KPV version here:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1987/1508/pdfs/uksi_19871508_en.pdf

Related Pages

Editorial Principles

Preparation Tasks - Identify Effects

Preparation Tasks - Record Effects