Editorial Update/Reviewer's Tasks
Update Review Checklist
1. Before you start the review, download the Table of Effects Spreadsheet (TOES) at the bottom of the Update Overview page for the document you are reviewing. Keep it open to check the amendment details, particularly those related to commencement and extent, throughout the review.
2. When in doubt, investigate further whenever there is a limited extent message flagged up with an amendment (but within reason, considering that this will have already been researched and reviewed, however sometimes errors do occur).
3. Keep open the amending provision so you have all the information you need about the amendment in order to consider and fully understand it.
4. Look at each amendment individually and in detail.
5. Take particular care when there are a few amendments to the same amended provision. The tasks can sometimes be ordered in XMetal in the Resource Manager pane in a different order to that in the actual amending provision. Check that the amendment carried out corresponds with the formatted annotation in the amended provision; they need to cross-reference correctly.
6. Look at the previous version of the amended provision to check that any words substituted, inserted or repealed have been done accurately and in the correct location.
7. Use the Preview Provision button to view the amended provision on legislation.gov.uk, and make sure that you check the timeline at provision and higher levels to ensure that the PiT has generated correctly. Use the Timeline Resolver to resolve any issues.
8. Check that the opening and closing brackets of the amendments are located in the correct place.
9. Check that the F-note reference is located in the right place and that it links to the correct annotation details at the foot of the provision.
10. Check that the annotation reads properly with particular attention paid to:
- Amended provision;
- Type of effect;
- Limited extent information, if applicable;
- Date, in particular if it isn’t a straightforward commencement;
- Amending document’s details including savings;
- Knock-on information, if applicable;
- Commencement information at the end of the annotation, in particular, if there are more than one Commencement Orders (C/O);
- Generally, look out for anything odd, like brackets in annotations, etc.
11. Check for redundant F-notes, M-notes or prosp. references and remove them if appropriate.
12. Whenever there is a provision, sub-provision, list item, etc. inserted or substituted, check that the alignment and formatting is correct. If not, there could be disparity in the tagging structure of the amended and amending provision, (P1:Group or P1:para) and as such change it by checking out the document in XMetaL and inserting the correct tagging hierarchy/structure as appropriate.
13. Check that all auto-annotations in your review task are displayed correctly and read properly. The best way to do this is to open the whole Act in legislation preview (with timeline displayed) and scroll up or down the Act.
Other considerations
Remember: if you need to make any corrections to any of the amendments, those corrections will also need to be made at any subsequent PiTs
If you need to make any changes if there are any errors in any of the amendments you are reviewing, remember that the data doesn't flow through to any future PiTs, so if there are any subsequent PiTs which contain other amendments for that provision, you will need to make a note of any changes you have made and carry them out at each subsequent PiT.
If you have had to correct a substantial numbers of errors at one PiT, it might be worth submitting the update review for early publish after that PiT and reallocating the subsequent PiTs back to the editor (but also see considerations about returning work mentioned below).
Note that any changes you make to annotations will flow through to the next PiT, so you won't need to repeat those amendments at the next PiT.
Returning work
When reviewing Editorial work consider the implications of returning work to the Editor. Would it be easier and simpler to correct on review? Is there a mistake, which is an oversight or is there a training issue required? Also consider whether there might be a Lex Error in the drafting of the amending legislation which has referenced the incorrect amended provision details or not considered a subsequent amendment to the amended provision. Lex Error queries do occur and are to be sent in an email, with relevant explanation details, to the SI Registrar.
Effects Confirmation Stage
Download the spreadsheet and check that all the applied effects in your update review task have been marked with a Y.
If you need to amend any of the applied statuses, you should make the required changes to the relevant entry (or entries) in the applied status column and add a Note if necessary. You can also add any Comments for the Editor if required. Save your changes and upload the amended spreadsheet.
If you need to make any further corrections to any of the applied effects, this should be done via a TOES correction task following the completion of the update task. The only changes that should be made to the TOES at the effects confirmation stage should be to add Ys and Ns to the Applied to DB columns and also add Comments and Notes.