Source register

Record every document a rule comes from, the version read and the date it was last checked. Anyone can then check a rule and see when it may have changed.

From the first rule you write down. Check every source again before any baseline and before you issue the files. Feeds: the business rules register, the BRD and the change request.

• Add one row per document, not per website.
• Record the version or the "last updated" date exactly as the document shows it.
• Say whether it is law or guidance, and what type of document it is.
• Note anything already made but not yet in force that would change a rule.
• Check every source again before each baseline and before issue, and record the date of that check.
• Record the licence and its attribution wording if you quote the source.

1. Which version did you read, and when did you last check it? Answered in Columns "State when last checked" and "Last checked".
2. Which sources are law and which are guidance? Answered in Columns "Type" and "Tag": five are law, five are guidance or official data.
3. Is anything pending that would change a rule? Answered in Column "Pending changes": SRC-01, SRC-03 and SRC-07, with the date set by SRC-10.
4. May we quote it? Answered in Column "Licence and attribution": Open Government Licence v3.0, with the attribution the regulator asks for.
5. Which document did you look for and not find? Answered in SRC-09 Notes: the code issued under regulation 16 of the EIR; DEC-07.

• Citing a home page instead of the document. You can spot it when the URL does not open the text that holds the quoted words.
• No date of the last check: nobody can say whether the rule still reads the same today.
• Mixing commentary with primary sources: a blog post or a training slide sits in the register beside an Act.
• Not recording a change that is made but not yet in force: a known change surprises the project after the baseline.
• Quoting without the attribution the licence asks for: the licence column is empty for a source that the rules register quotes.

• Every source was checked again before issue, as step 5 says, and the "Last checked" date is the date of that check. The date each source was first read was not kept, so it is not invented. A check that changes no wording does not make a new version. Rejected: a "Read on" column filled with first-read dates that nobody recorded.
• SRC-10 was added in version 1.1 by CR-01, so it has the highest number, even though it is law and SRC-08 is only data. Rejected: renumbering to keep the law together, which would break every reference to SRC-08 and SRC-09. IDs are never renumbered.
• The code of practice issued under regulation 16 of the EIR is not in the register, because it could not be found on GOV.UK. The regulator's guidance about it is in the register (SRC-09), and a rule found only in the FOIA Code applies to FOIA requests only (DEC-07). Rejected: citing the 2005 code from a secondary website or from memory.
• The FOIA Amendment Bill (Bill 4267) is not in the register. Its text could not be read, because the page was blocked. It is known only from search results, as a Ten Minute Rule Bill on section 37 and the royal household. These files do not rely on it. Rejected: listing it with a guess at what it would change.