GIG Awards 2021 - Annual Award (Part 1)

 This is the third post in our series highlighting the winners of the 2021 GIG Awards.

 

Once again the Awards Judging Panel were impressed by the incredibly high standard of entries received this year - all were great examples of the diversity and importance of the work undertaken by those working in the KIM profession in government.

Two nominations stood out as worthy winners and after much debate the Judges decided that this year the GIG Annual Award should be presented jointly to two very different, but equally deserving, teams. In our next two blog posts - and in no particular order - we will feature the work of the joint winners.

Today, we celebrate the work of the Legislation Services and Web Archiving Teams at The National Archives (TNA).

 

The teams were nominated for their work in tackling the twin legislation challenges of EU Exit and the pandemic. One can only imagine the sort of pressure that these teams, led by Clare Allison, Jack Eaglesfield, Richard Hodgson, Tom Storrar, Catherine Tabone, Claire Harvey and Judith Riley have had to face over the past 12-18 months. The nomination outlined the extent to which they and their colleagues stepped up to respond to new needs, both in the context of the Pandemic but also for EU Exit. The way in which patterns of usage in www.legislation.gov.uk changed during the Pandemic and how the team responded to those challenges was incredible - and quite exhausting even to read about! 

 

The teams were nominated by Matthew Bell at the TNA who said: “this past year has probably been the most challenging the Legislation Services team at The National Archives has ever faced. The culmination of several years of preparation for EU Exit saw preparatory legislation being made, registered and published right up until 11pm on 31st December. In relation to the publishing of new legislation, in December we saw the 5-year record for the busiest week broken two weeks in a row. In the production of revised versions of legislation the editorial team had their most productive ever year, capturing 87,000 amendments from new legislation (contributing to a total of over 145,000 EU Exit amendments), and making 69,000 updates to existing laws.  The service needed to reflect a fundamental shift in the status of EU legislation overnight with the biggest single change to the UK statute book in modern legal history. With repercussions for the presentation of hundreds of thousands of pieces of legislation, and the nature and terms of that change not being confirmed until the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020 was passed on December 30th, there was no room for error when updating legislation.gov.uk on the 31st. In addition, the Web Archiving team successfully created a full archive of EU legislative and case material as it stood at the point of exit with over 2 million archived resources and 2.3 Terabytes of data preserved”.

 

Beyond EU Exit, the government’s legislative response to the pandemic required a significant shift in the departments’ ways of working, with the publishing team registering dozens of emergency health protection regulations at weekends and late at night for the first time, and the editorial team updating the rapidly changing laws often within 24 hours of being made. This effort was necessary to meet massive public interest in this legislation, with unprecedented peaks in usage of legislation.gov.uk and an average increase of over 50% in the number of users since 2019. Additionally, the Web Archiving team worked around the clock to ensure that all official material published online during the pandemic would be archived and preserved for posterity.

Legislation.gov.uk clearly filled a vital information role during very difficult and turbulent times, helping government officials, health and local government staff, and members of the general public access up-to-date information about COVID legislation. The TNA service often trumped the commercial legal databases in having up-to-date consolidation weeks before they had, and so government legal professionals may equally have had cause to turn to www.legislation.gov.uk where previously they would not have. Thanks to the work of these two teams at The National Archives, social science researchers will be able to examine and compare the development of the law during this unique period of our history, and future generations will be able to look back on the events of the past 12-18 months with a greater clarity and understanding. 

Many congratulations to the Legislation Services and Web Archiving Teams at The National Archives!!

GIG members were treated to a really informative presentation from the TNA on the Legislation.UK service in December 2020 as part of GIG’s webinar series. The session was recorded and is available for GIG members to view online.

 

Karen George

Vice Chair, Government Information Group & Chair of the Awards Judging Panel

 

 

 

 

The GIG Annual Awards are an ideal opportunity to achieve wider recognition for the work that you do and can help raise the profile of you, your team and your organisation. So why not start thinking now about submitting a nomination for 2022?  However big or small the piece of work it is all testament to innovation, hard work, professionalism and commitment - and the value of KIM skills.