Conference report: 'Open parliament: a guide to parliamentary information in the 21st century'

On September 23 one hundred and twenty delegates gathered at Portcullis House (parliamentary offices opposite Westminster) for a one-day conference. The sponsor for the conference was SCOOP (Standing Committee on Official Publications of the Information Services Group [ISG] of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals [CILIP]). CILIP is the UK ALIA. The proceedings were opened and chaired by Dr Chris Pond, head of reader services, House of Commons Member's Library.

The conference was told that in 2003 the House of Commons Public Information Service celebrated twenty-five years and that they field on average two million enquiries per year as well as distributing three million publications. Now these enquiries come mostly by e-mail from all parts of the globe but even in this e-mail society, they field 75 000 phone calls per year. There has been a drastic shift in response to the public since 1997. Before this time public outreach was not considered a core activity but now it is a corporate objective. Openness and transparency in government is the driver behind the changes. Chris Pond gave the example of the Public Accounts Committee where for almost thirty years Hansard was not recorded. Now there is instant access to the proceedings of the committee via weblink.

The first speaker was Bryn Morgan, head of the House of Commons Information Office who described the different types of information that his office deals with and provides to the public. He divided the information into five types:

proceedings of the parliament which includes Hansard as well as other information such as the Public Bill List
reports of the parliament which includes select committee reports, deposited papers and annual reports
legislation, which although appearing self explanatory includes much more that the acts
how parliament works
information about the members of the parliament

The information is available both in paper and electronic form. The paper form is charged for and often clients are told to go to their local library to source information. The problem is that many libraries are unable to afford the paper versions which are only available from The Stationery Office (TSO see below). An interesting observation which we may have seen in our own libraries is that when the internet was a 'new toy' the number of phone queries dropped markedly. The number of phone queries has risen again it seems because there are two types of clients who now use the phone, the ones who do not have internet access and those people who prefer to talk to 'a real person'. The information service sees a rise in the queries concerning 'who is my member' when an organisation has asked that a bulk mailing of postcards be sent to parliament.

The information available at the House of Commons Information Office can be accessed via http://www.parliament.uk.

The second speaker, Alan Pawsey has worked with the HMSO for many years and has been through the privatisation of the original HMSO. The history of the HMSO was as publisher and supplier to the government. This meant that you ordered your paperclips and a copy of Hansard on the same invoice from HMSO. The privatisation of the HMSO has resulted in the HMSO becoming the body responsible for the publication of all UK legislation and House of Commons papers but it is not the body which prints or publishes these documents. That is left to The Stationery Office (TSO). The Statutory Publications Office (SPO) is responsible for the online version of legislation. This will be available sometime in 2004. Parliamentary information is available via a number of sources some of which are vendor packaged and are therefore on a fee for service basis, others are free but may be difficult to navigate.

The third speaker, Catrin Owens discussed Hansard. Catrin provided a short history of Hansard (a full version is available at the House of Commons website). The publication of parliamentary proceedings had been haphazard until the early nineteenth century and at one time was illegal. William Corbett was the firs publisher of Hansard type reports but he sold the rights to T C Hansard in 1811. The reporting of Hansard was taken over by the parliament in 1909 and the name although always used was not official until 1943. Hansard is not a verbatim record of Parliamentary proceedings. The Hansard reporter takes a record which is edited before publication. Catlin provided details of the various versions and how to work with these (all explained on the website under Hansard).

The fourth speaker, David Natzler gave us an account of select committees and how the reporting is done. Select committees are the last section of the parliamentary process to have a Hansard record. The committees themselves decide how the reports are to be published which leads to much variation in timing and the styles of reporting.

The speaker leading up to lunch was Alastair Allan whom some of you may have met at various international conferences. He is the chairman of SCOOP and also a lecturer in librarianship not information (his emphasis) at Sheffield. He really gave the parliament 'beans'. He said that twenty years ago he was bringing up the same issues as he was about to say in this forum. He felt that parliamentary information access in the UK was 'third world'. He said that when he wanted parliamentary information he did not go to the website above but to the US where he can access UK information in three clicks rather than the six-seven it takes in the UK.

We then had lunch!!

The final speaker of the day, Helen Holden rounded out the workshop with a session on the different ways to use the websites and vendor sites. It was almost as though Alastair Allan had not happened.

Proceedings of this workshop will be available from SCOOP.

After a very mild panel discussion we were all taken on various tours. I chose the House of Lords Record Office (see next instalment for detail, probably not until 2004). As I write this report I am up to my ears in boxes and somehow my library has grown over the year, not to mention my shoe collection. I am on my way back to Perth in early December.

Roberta Cowan

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