Introduction
Metadata relating to the amendment is displayed in the right-hand panel called “Amendment Information”. This includes information such as the amendment status and amendment location information. In most cases, the amendment information is automatically updated by parsing the amendment instruction and gleaning the clause/page/line etc. information required for sorting. In some cases, namely amendments to amendments in the House of Lords and House of Commons, the instruction doesn't contain enough context for sorting so the Amendment Information can be manually updated to allow automatic sorting to take place.
How to view amendment information
- Access the Amendment Information panel by clicking on ‘Amendment Information’ in the right-hand panel
- The system will display all relevant fields
How to update amendment information
- Access the Amendment Information panel by clicking on 'Amendment Information' in the right-hand panel
- The system will display all relevant fields
- Place your cursor in the Location, Provision, Page, Line or Sort Code and manually enter in the appropriate information
Hints and tips
- The right-hand panel can be minimised/expanded by clicking on the grey little arrow down the side of the right-hand panel.
- If you select a different amendment in the Editor, the “Amendment Information” panel will update to reflect the metadata associated to the newly selected amendment
- Sort Code is an optional field which can be updated to allow fine tuning sorting where necessary e.g. 2 x amendments inserting new sections in the same location
- The Location information is updated after an amendment has been saved (including changes to the amendment). The system will parse the instruction text and work out the various location information which is used by the system for sorting amendments in official lists.
- As part of 'Save' the system will check the amendment instruction - if location information can be identified it will overwrite any manually inputted information.
- Appropriate text to manually insert:
- Location: "before" or "after" (used in Lords and SP for new clauses and new amendments e.g. "After Schedule 2"
- Provision: "sec_7" or "sch_2" or "amnd_3" (amnd_3 = the target amendment)
- Page: the appropriate page number e.g "4"
- Line: the appropriate line number e.g. "20"
- Sort code: this is uses numeric or alphanumeric sort so it's up to you how you would like to use this function in your jurisdiction
- In the Lords, for Amendments to Amendments where the target amendment does not have an assigned number, you should copy the Provision, page and line number from the target amendment to ensure that the amendment to amendment appears in the correct sort location in the generated Daily Sheet/Supplementary Sheet. Once the target amendment has been assigned a number you can update the amendment to amendment's Provision with it in the form "amnd_23"