Public Access to Legislation Project
Project update, April 2006
Work on the PAL Project resumed in March 2005. The project is scheduled for completion in late 2006/early 2007.
First stage completed
System architecture
Standardisation and simplification
Independent quality assurance
Next steps
First stage completed
The first stage of the resumed project was completed at the end of 2005, and involved the review and consolidation of the PCO's requirements for the new PAL system. These requirements were captured in:
- a Legislation Outputs Specification, which sets out a complete statement of the format of New Zealand legislation that the new PAL system must be able to produce; this is a comprehensive set of print output specifications and example documents for use in design, development, and testing of the PAL system
- a Consolidated Functional and Non-Functional Specification, which integrates the original user requirements and functional specifications developed in Stage 1 of the project in 2001, together with requirements, issues, and defects identified during subsequent testing of the PAL system, the technical review, and the review of alternative print rendering engines
- a revised Document Type Definition Guide.
As baseline documents, these specification documents now form the foundations for the remaining design, development, and testing phases of the project.
Proof of concept
As part of the first stage of the resumed project, Unisys carried out a "proof of concept" exercise for key technology components highlighted during the technical review, in order to confirm that the proposed technology is capable of meeting the PCO's business requirements, and that certain business processes can be satisfactorily catered for in the new system. The proof of concept focused particularly on the capability and performance of the new print rendering engine (Arbortext E3) in the production of electronic files for printed documents and for the new PAL website, and in the production of Bills with correct line numbering; the capability and performance of the website search engine (DTSearch); and the ability of the new system to produce Bills with correct revision-tracking markup for display on the new PAL website. The proof of concept exercise successfully confirmed these matters.
Spotlight review
A "spotlight review" undertaken by the PCO and Unisys at the end of the first stage confirmed the effort, deliverables, and time frame required to complete the project. As part of the spotlight review, the PCO and Unisys reviewed and revised the project schedule in the light of the signed-off specifications and system architecture approach. The revised project schedule confirms that the PAL system should be ready for final acceptance by the PCO in late 2006.
Chosen technology
Following the confirmation of PCO's requirements and the Proof of Concept, the technology toolsets chosen for the PAL system are:
- Arbortext Epic Editor for XML authoring
- Documentum for content management
- Arbortext E3 for rendering output (HTML and PDF)
- Arbortext Styler for stylesheet design
- Arbortext DCAM for cross-referencing.
System architecture
Advances in technology and architectural thinking since the PAL system was originally designed have led to the adoption of a Service Oriented Architecture model. Instead of having to make all the components talk directly to each other through the proprietary software integration modules provided by the software vendors, the individual "services" that each software package provides are brought together under the umbrella of a single overarching software module. This new approach to the technical architecture of the PAL system will provide a much more unified and consistent way by which staff within the PCO, Office of the Clerk, and IRD will access the new PAL system.
Some key benefits of the new architecture are:
- a simplified and consistent user interface for those operating the system
- improved administration and management of the system components
- less dependence on individual system components
- improved maintainability
- a high degree of future proofing
- reduced custom development and maintenance through increased use of standard software packages.
Instead of staff having to log into different software packages to do different things, all the services that make up the PAL system (such as document search, document check-in and check-out, and document rendering to PDF (for print) and HTML and PDF (for the website)) will be provided through a "unified user interface". Authoring and editing will still be carried out in Epic Editor, but the other "services" will be accessed through a specially designed interface integrated into Epic itself. The new unified user interface is being designed carefully to ensure that it provides all staff with the functionality that they need to do their jobs. A team of users from the PCO, Office of the Clerk, and IRD has been involved in design workshops and review of design documents.
Standardisation and simplification
The PCO and Unisys agreed that, during the first phase of the resumed project, both parties would review the requirements for the system with a view to avoiding unnecessary customisations of the software packages selected to form part of the PAL system. In particular, requirements that could not be fulfilled by standard features of these packages would be reassessed to see if the requirements could be eliminated by a change to work practice or at least simplified to avoid the need for customisation.
As a result of this standardisation and simplification review, the PCO identified a number of changes to business processes and the format of legislation that would eliminate or reduce the need for customisation. These include the following:
Annual bound volumes
The process for producing annual bound volumes of Acts and Statutory Regulations has been removed from the scope of the project, and will be undertaken using a separate process. Some changes have also been made to the format of the annual bound volumes to simplify and expedite their production. These changes include ceasing to add sequential page numbers to the items in the volumes, although individual enactments within each volume will retain their original page numbers. The overall objective is to publish Acts and Statutory Regulations in the annual bound volumes in the form in which they were enacted or made, without any changes being made between the loose copy and its version as printed in the annual bound volumes. This will enable the annual bound volumes to be published earlier than has previously been possible.
Tables of contents
The format of the table of contents (ToC) at the start of each Bill, Act, set of Statutory Regulations, and reprint has been changed from two columns to a single column, page numbers are included in the ToC, and the font size of the ToC has been increased to enhance readability. Page numbers in ToCs will assist users to navigate around large Acts, Bills, and regulations, and make up for the removal of sequential page numbers in annual bound volumes. These changes have been introduced for all legislation as from January 2006.
International conventions and treaties
International conventions and treaties that are included in legislation will be reformatted to conform to normal PCO style, rather than reproduced in the highly variable formatting of the original. This change will be introduced when the new PAL system goes live, since constraints within the typesetting system currently in use do not permit its earlier introduction.
Cross-referencing
The PCO's requirements for cross-referencing within and between electronic versions of legislative documents have been simplified, to avoid the need for significant customisation of the software required to create and maintain hypertext links within and between legislation on the new PAL website.
Other changes
A number of more minor changes to the format of legislation have also been made as from January 2006, such as the following:
- The number of a provision being substituted, inserted, or added previously appeared in roman font, although when incorporated in a reprint of the principal enactment it was changed to bold font. The number of a provision being substituted, inserted, or added will now be in bold from the start.
- Title provisions of amending Bills and amending Statutory Regulations previously contained a footnote reference to the principal enactment. This practice has ceased, and the appearance of footnotes in legislation has been standardised.
Independent quality assurance
Independent quality assurance of both the technical and project management aspects of the project has been undertaken during the course of the first phase of the resumed project. Dr Timothy Arnold-Moore and another technical adviser, Steven Thomsen, have reviewed the proposed new system architecture and other specification documents. Hewlett Packard New Zealand Limited has reviewed the project management aspects of the project.
Next steps
Work on the PAL Project for the first half of 2006 is focused on the remaining design and development phases and systems integration testing. Performance and stress testing, user acceptance testing, training, and implementation will follow in the second half of 2006.
Unisys is on schedule for delivery by late 2006, with implementation scheduled for the end of 2006/early 2007. The implementation strategy will take into account the sitting programme of the House, and the desirability of avoiding unnecessary disruption to the business operations of the PCO, Office of the Clerk, and IRD.