GOVIS 2002

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GOVIS 2002

• Improving Public Access to Legislation
• Geoff Lawn and Julia Kennedy
• Parliamentary Counsel Office

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Outline

• What does the PCO do?
• How do we provide public access to legislation
  now?
• Why improve public access to legislation?
• What does the PAL Project involve?

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Outline

• PAL Project progress and organisation
• Legislation_at_your.service
• How do we know what people want?
• New website of NZ legislation

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Outline

• Organisational change
• Overview of technology
• Want more information?

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What does the PCO do?

• Drafts Government Bills and amendments
• Drafts Statutory Regulations
• Arranges the printing and publication of
• Acts and regulations
• reprints of Acts and regulations
• Must make copies available for purchase by the
  public at a reasonable price

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How do we provide access?

• Official versions available only in hard copy
• pamphlet copies of Acts and regulations
• annual bound volumes
• reprints of Acts and some regulations

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Why improve public access to legislation?

• State has a duty to make its laws available to
  its citizens
• Supports democratic process
• Implement part of E-government vision
• people better informed because they can get
  up-to-date and comprehensive information about
  Government laws, Statutory Regulations, policies,
  and services

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What is the problem?

• Current reprint process
• produces only hard copy reprints
• slow and inefficient
• doesnt meet the needs of users of legislation
• no official database of legislation

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What does the PAL Project involve?

• New services
• New processes
• Taking advantage of technology
• Changes to organisational arrangements
• Multiple agencies involved
• Fitting around business as usual

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Project progress

• Over to Julia Kennedy

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Project progress

• Nov 2000 Government approved business case
• Dec 2000 PCO issued request for
  an Implementation Partner
• July 2001 Contract with Unisys signed
• Dec 2001 Stage 1 completed
• Feb 2002 Government approves additional
  funding
• Mar 2002 Stage 2 work commenced

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Project stages

• Stage 1
• 7 projects
• requirements and specifications
• evaluation and selection
• Transition
• Stage 2
• 13 projects
• implementation

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Key players

• Parliamentary Counsel Office
• Office of the Clerk
• Drafting Unit of the IRD
• SSC E-government Unit
• Unisys

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Project organisation
Stakeholders

MPs
PCO Project
Director/Sponsor

Legal publishers

Interest groups

Public, etc
Project Committee
PCO
Unisys
OC
SSC
IRD
Unisys Project
Director
Contract Manager
Unisys Project
Central Agencies
PCO Project Manager
Manager

SSC

Treasury

Audit NZ
PCO Project Team
Unisys Project
Team
Project Office
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Stage 1 milestones

• Survey on printed legislation
• August 2001
• Study tour to Australian PCOs
• August 2001
• Book of requirements
• October 2001
• Stage 1 completed
• November 2001

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Stage 2 Unisys projects

• DTD acquisition and repurposing
• Database content
• Content Management System
• Authoring tool
• Pre-publication tools
• Website implementation
• Systems integration

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Stage 2 PCO-led projects

• Pre-Publication Unit (PPU)
• Reprints Unit
• Officialisation
• Printing arrangements for legislation
• Website ISP
• Communication and change management

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Legislation_at_your.service

• Back to Geoff Lawn

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Legislation_at_your.service

• Electronic access to legislation via the Internet
• Bills, Acts, regulations, SOPs
• up-to-date reprints
• New way of presenting amendments to Bills

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Legislation_at_your.service

• Download and print official versions
• Order printed copies online
• Hard copy reprints
• reprint policy
• annual reprint programme
• Data to legal publishers

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How do we know what people want?

• Discussion paper issued 1998
• Survey on reprints and printed material
• Workshops on website design
• Reprints programme

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Website preview

• www.legislation.govt.nz

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Organisational change

• Back to Julia Kennedy

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Changing the way we work

• Projects
• Organisational change
• Technical solution

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PCO publisher

• Print and electronic publishing
• transition from printing at Legislation Direct
• pre-printing at PCO
• copying at contracted printer
• new printing arrangements working by 31 January
  2003
• new web publishing arrangements

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New publishing arrangements
PCO drafters and secretaries
Contracted printer for copying and distribution

• PCO
• PPU

Office of the Clerk
PCO website
IRD Drafters
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Change at every level

• Change in output classes
• 2 new units
• PPU
• RU
• New tools
• authoring tool
• CMS

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Solution components

• Authoring tool
• Prepublication tool
• Database
• CMS
• Search engine
• Electronic access

• Arbortext Epic Editor
• Epic Print Composer
• Brookers
• Documentum
• Verity in Documentum
• dtSearch Web

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Solution key issues

• Integration
• Connectivity
• IRD drafters
• Office of the Clerk
• Printer
• ISP
• legal publishers
• Security
• Performance

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Want more information?

• PCO website
• pco.parliament.govt.nz/pal
• Project Overview
• PAL Project Bulletin
• FAQs

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Contact us

• PAL Project Administrator Parliamentary Counsel
  Office phone [phone] fax [phone]
  email access_at_parliament.govt.nz