Update status of legislation

Now that the new SLD system is fully operational, the editorial process of bringing the revised text of legislation on SLD up to date has resumed. Over the coming months, the outstanding revisions will be progressively applied to the database. While this work continues, this page explains how to determine the point in time to which any given item of legislation has been revised (its 'update status') and also how to obtain details of any effects that have not yet been applied.

The information on this page relates only to those types of legislation that are maintained on SLD in revised form. Those types are listed in Help under the title 'Legislation - Types of Legislation on SLD - Primary Legislation (Revised)'. They are referred to here simply as 'revised legislation'.

All revised legislation has been updated at least to the end of 2001 (and Northern Ireland statutes to the end of 2005).

There are approximately 4,000 items of revised legislation currently held on SLD and these have all been updated with any effects on them contained in legislation made or enacted at any time before the end of 2001 (or, in the case of Northern Ireland revised statutes, before the end of 2005).

The majority of these are also fully up to date.

Over half of all items of revised legislation on SLD already incorporate any effects on them contained in legislation made or enacted up to the present.

For the remainder there are still effects outstanding.

For a minority of the items of revised legislation on SLD there are effects in one or more of the years from 2002 to the current year that have not yet been applied.

You will be told of any outstanding effects when you access an item of legislation.

A warning notice will appear on the 'Results within legislation' page listing the years for which there are outstanding effects on that legislation. If no warning notice appears, you may assume that the legislation has been revised with any effects so far recorded (but see below on timescales for recording the effects of newly enacted legislation).

You can obtain lists of any outstanding effects.

The effects on legislation recorded for each of the years from 2002 to the current year are listed in the Tables of Legislative Effects. Taken together, SLD and the tables will enable you to obtain a complete picture of all the effects on any given item of revised legislation held on SLD to date (subject to the note below on the effects of newly enacted legislation). The tables will also tell you whether those effects have been applied to SLD. Please go to the tables for instructions on how to use them.

The effects of newly enacted legislation will be recorded soon after publication.

They will appear in the 'Tables of legislative effects' as soon as possible after the legislation is received from the publisher. Typically, the interval between publication and the effects appearing in the tables will be no more than two weeks. There will, however, be occasions when a longer interval will be unavoidable, for example when a large number of Acts have received the Royal Assent at the same time. In such circumstances an appropriate notice will appear in the 'Messages' section of the Homepage.

A small number of Acts have not yet been loaded onto the new SLD system.

There are currently about 40 Acts that we have been unable to load so far due to a variety of outstanding issues. As these issues are resolved, those Acts will be added to SLD. The outstanding Acts are listed in the table below.

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