Editorial Update/Affected Extent Research
The Affected Extent Research task is a task we need to do on each affected Act prior to its being updated online.
Just as during the Record Effects and Effects Research tasks we research the extent and territorial application of the affecting provisions which are contained in affecting legislation, so we also need to investigate the extent and territorial application of the affected provisions contained in each affected Act.
Where an Act has not been revised this is quite a straight forward task. We just need to identify the Act’s extent provisions and follow their instructions.
However, where an Act has been revised the applied amendments may have changed where the provisions now extend to (or where they now apply):
- New provisions may have been inserted or substituted with wider or narrower extents than the original provisions.
- Provisions may have been partly repealed and no longer extend as widely as before.
- Non-textual amendments may have “extended” the existing provisions to new geographical extents.
- The original extent provisions may themselves have been altered thus affecting the extent of a portion of or indeed the whole Act.
Remember, just as when we investigate affecting provisions in Extended TOES we are not satisfied with merely discovering the extent of the whole provision but must delve into the precise extent of the sub-provision which actually contains the effect, so here we want to be as “granular” as possible and reach down to the precise extent of the lowest sub-provision that is actually affected.
So when doing the Affected Extent Research task we want you to provide the extent/territorial application situation for affected provisions of the latest version of the Act down to their lowest numbered affected provision level. The easiest way to find this out is to look at the latest version of the Act on legislation.gov.uk or, if you have access to it, on ActiveText.
In order to do this you will need to download a spreadsheet (the Affected Extent spreadsheet) from the online system, fill in the relevant extent and territorial application values and then upload the completed spreadsheet.insert image
When you download the Affected Extent spreadsheet you will be given three columns in which to input values:
Affected Extent – this column is used to record the extent value of the provision itself (so it may also be referred to as the Affected Provision Extent column). There is a dropdown menu in each cell you can use to select the appropriate extent value.
Affected Effects Extent – this column should be used to enter the extent value for any effects that an affected provision may contain. For example, a provision may extend to EWS (which would be its Affected Extent value), but it may contain amendments to other legislation which are said to extend only to EW or to have the same extent as the provisions they amend (i.e. Same as affected). This is its Affected Effects Extent value. This value only needs to be entered if the Affected Effects Extent is different from the Affected Provision Extent. Please note that you don’t need to check that the affected provision actually contains amendments. Either the extent provisions of the Act will explicitly state that the amendments contained in specified provisions have a different extent from the provisions containing them (in which case you can enter this value against the specific affected provision(s)) or they will make a general statement to the effect that all amendments and repeals made by the Act (or a part of the Act) have the same extent as the provisions they amend or repeal (in which case you can enter “Same as affected” against all affected provisions or all affected provisions contained in the relevant part).
Affected Territorial Application – this column is used to record the territorial application value of an affected provision where it has been explicitly stated in the affected Act. This is very rare in primary legislation, but will occur more often where we have decided to update specific secondary legislation.
Step by Step Guide
The instructions for the Affected Extent Research task are as follows:
- Select the Affected Extent Research task by clicking on it in My Current Work.
- Click on the Start Task button in the task landing page. This will take you to stage 1 of the task, Download Effects Spreadsheet.
- Click on the Download file button to download a spreadsheet containing the affected provisions for the update Act.
- Save the spreadsheet to My Documents on the C: drive of your computer.
- Investigate and input the Affected Extent, Affected Effects Extent (if any) and Affected Territorial Application (if any) for each affected provision. The easiest way to find this out is to look at the latest version of the Act on legislation.gov.uk or, if you have access to it, on ActiveText:
- Check the extent provisions of the Act. Remember there may be more than one of these. There is normally a main extent provision at the end of the Act, but perhaps there may be one at the beginning or end of the Part or Chapter that contains the affecting provision or even in the provision itself. Also, bear in mind that the extent provisions themselves may have been amended.
- If you have access, you may find it useful to look at the marked up hard copy legislation or the scanned version of that mark up.
- If you have access, you may find it useful to View Attributes in ActiveText. But remember that when we set the attributes of Acts during Initial Edit we work at whole provision level and we therefore set the extent to the widest extent of that provision’s sub-provisions. We cannot therefore rely on these attributes to find out the extent of a particular sub-provision, which may in fact be narrower than that of the whole provision.
- If the above two options aren’t available, you will have to rely on the Act as it appears in legislation.gov.uk. The same caveat applies here as above.
- Open the Act completely in legislation.gov.uk and tick the box marked “Show Geographical Extent” in the Advanced Features area on the left of the screen.
- For each affected provision check that the original extent value has not been altered by subsequent textual amendments with wider or narrower extent.
- For each affected provision check that the original extent value has not been altered by subsequent non-textual amendments which extend that provision to wider extents.
- Make sure you save your changes to the completed spreadsheet.
- Click Next stage top go through to stage 2, Upload Effects Spreadsheet.
- Click on the Browse button and select your saved spreadsheet and click Open.
- Click on the Upload button to upload your spreadsheet to the online system ready for review.