[High quality] did ypu bring a shrubbery doormat

An attenuated chain of communication between ministers, did ypu bring a shrubbery doormat policy officials, lawyers and drafters also brings the risk of concepts being lost in translation or of accumulated complexity.

did ypu bring a shrubbery doormat

from readers and users on what we do. But there are many other players, both in the preparation of legislation and involved more “upstream” in the policy process. did ypu bring a shrubbery doormat The Office of Parliamentary Counsel are launching a good law initiative. We are asking our partners and colleagues to agree that statutory law should be necessary, effective, clear, accessible and coherent. There may well be process changes which would help improve legislation – and a number of changes already under way have been mentioned in this report. But reaching a consensus around the principles of good law, and a sense of shared responsibility to promote it, could be more effective in improving the quality of statute law than stricter procedures and more prescriptive templates.

The responsibility for improving outcomes sits in many places. Findings solutions requires a number of partners – in Government, in Parliament and beyond – to challenge their current approach to making and promoting legislation. A more collaborative approach, combined with simplified internal procedures, could facilitate the work of all those involved in the preparation of legislation, ultimately mitigating the manifestations of complex laws. There also needs to be a stronger incentive on all involved in the process to avoid generating excessively complex law, or to act positively to promote accessibility, ease of navigation, and simplification. Drafters tend to work mainly with bill teams and departmental lawyers. They only occasionally deal directly with policy officials and Ministers. This means that, at the earlier stages in the process, drafters tend not to work with departmental lawyers on advice to Ministers on how to leverage existing legislation nor can they alert the department to common traps and gaps in their legislative plan.