What data is available?

Information on the extent and limitations of the data that is available.

Legislation Text Bulk Dataset - Data Completeness - Words Explorer

The Words Explorer tool allows you to interrogate legislation by entering a word or sequence of words to see where they occur in legislation and how frequently they occur over time. This guide outlines the data coverage and availability across different types of legislation.

What Can Be Searched?

The N-Grams dataset uses the text of enacted legislation. This means that your search includes all amendments without duplication. If the N-Grams dataset used revised versions of legislation, amendment words would be counted twice i.e. in the amending and amended legislation.

The default scope of the N-Grams dataset is All UK legislation (excluding originating from the EU), although you can pick different legislation types from the drop-down menu. The source of the data is legislation.gov.uk. For some legislation types, the data is complete. For others it is partial. 

What is the graph showing me? 

The graph shows you the average frequency of the N-Grams (i.e. the words or phrases you are looking for) across the whole corpus of documents you have selected (the legislation type and date ranges). The bottom axis shows the date range you have chosen, and the vertical axis shows the frequency of occurrence. Where the line is greater than one, it shows the N-Gram occurs more frequently than the average N-Gram in the average year. So, for example, if your graph shows a count of 68 in the year 2012, this means that the word or phrase you selected appeared 68 times more frequently in 2012 than the average N-Gram in the average year. N-Grams are therefore very useful for showing trends.

Data Limitations 

Historical Legislation (Pre-1988)

Before 1988, legislation was only available in paper format. While some older legislation has been digitised, many documents from before 1988 either:

  • Are not available on the website at all
  • Only exist as PDFs and therefore have limited searchable information (like title and year)

PDF Documents

When legislation is only available as a PDF, you can only search its basic details (metadata) such as:

  • Title
  • Year
  • Document number
  • Other basic information

You cannot search the actual text content of PDF-only documents. We're continually working to digitise more historical legislation. The availability of searchable content improves over time as more documents are converted to digital formats

Data Coverage 

Enacted Legislation

Recent Legislation (2011 onwards)

  • All enacted legislation published from 2011 onwards is available in full
  • Documents are available in both print and standard formats
  • Complete coverage for all legislation types

Pre-2011 Legislation

  • Most legislation types are complete from 1988 onwards
  • Some pre-1988 legislation has been digitised, but coverage is not complete

Notable exceptions:

  • UK Local Acts: Complete from 1991 onwards
  • Northern Ireland Statutory Rules: Complete from 1996 onwards
  • Non-print secondary legislation is only available in Original King's Printer PDF/Enacted-Print formats

EU Data Completeness

General EU Legislation Coverage

www.legislation.gov.uk includes all EUR-Lex documents that meet these criteria:

  • Classified as EU regulation, decision, or directive in EUR-Lex's "sector" scheme
  • Published in the L series Official Journal of the European Union with assigned number
  • Available in English
  • Available in PDF and/or Formex XML formats

Format Availability

  • PDF Format: The majority of EU legislation is available

XML format: Generally available for documents from 2004 onwards. All available XML has been converted to CLML This means that all regular www.legislation.gov.uk formats and features derived from CLML XML will be present for recent EU legislation data as well as UK legislation data.

EU Treaties 

Four EU treaties (eut) have been published to www.legislation.gov.uk . 

  • Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union:

The most recent revised version is available as CLML XML (and all derived formats) and non-dynamic PDF. All earlier revised points-in-time are available in non-dynamic PDF format.

  • Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community
  • Treaty on European Union

The most recent revised versions are available as CLML XML (and all derived formats) and non-dynamic PDF. All earlier revised points-in-time are available in non-dynamic PDF format as are the original EU Official Journal versions.

  • Agreement on the European Economic Area

The adopted and most recent revised versions are available as CLML XML (and all derived formats) and non-dynamic PDF. All earlier revised points-in-time are available in non-dynamic PDF format as is the original EU Official Journal version.

Data Completeness of Legislation Amendment Datasets

The following table looks at the data completeness of the legislation amendment datasets. The first column tells you which legislation type an amendment is being applied to and the second column tells you which publishing year the amending document has to be for the dataset to be complete i.e. if the year given in the cell is 1994, then all amending documents published after that year will have a complete dataset.

Legislation Type Amending document publication year 
To UK Public General Acts 1994
To UK Local Acts 2013
To Acts of the Scottish Parliament 1994
To Acts of Senedd Cymru Incomplete
To Acts of the National Assembly for Wales 1994
To Measures of the National Assembly for Wales 1994
To Church Measures 1994
To Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly 2006
To Acts of the Old Scottish Parliament 1424-1707 1994
To Acts of the English Parliament 1267-1706 1994
To Acts of the Old Irish Parliament 1495-1800 1994
To Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain 1707-1800 1994
To Northern Ireland Orders in Council 2006
To Measures of the Northern Ireland Assembly 1974 2006
To Acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament 1921-1972 2006
To UK Statutory Instruments 1972
To Welsh Statutory Instruments 1972
To Scottish Statutory Instruments 1972
To Northern Ireland Statutory Rules Incomplete
To Church Instruments Incomplete
To UK Ministerial Orders Incomplete
To UK Statutory Rules and Orders 1972
To Northern Ireland Statutory Rules and Orders  Incomplete

 

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