Government and Politics

Key Starting Points

UK

Elections
Parliaments and Assemblies
Tracking UK Legislation

European Union

US

Key Starting Points

Governments on the WWW www.gksoft.com/govt/
By far the most extensive collection of links to national and local governments, government departments and political parties that we have found to date. Covers over 220 countries and territories. Available in English and German. Unfortunately, no longer updated.

Oultwood International Local Government Index www.oultwood.com

Political Resources on the Net www.politicalresources.net
Listings of political sites available on the Internet sorted by country, with links to parties, organizations, governments, media and election sites.

Foreign Governments www.library.nwu.edu/govpub/resource/internat/foreign.html
US site providing links to non-US government Web sites.

CIA Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chiefs/index.html

Elections around the world www.electionworld.org
Offers a world-wide directory of political parties, parliaments and summaries of election results.

UK

Governments on the WWW: Great Britain and Northern Ireland www.gksoft.com/govt/en/gb.html

Tagish UK Central and Local Government Links www.tagish.co.uk/links/

Her Majesty's Treasury www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Press statements, documents, ministers speeches etc. Also the text of the budget. Details of how to receive Treasury press releases by e-mail as they are issued can be found in the News section

Information Commissioner's Office www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
This site provides information and publications on the UK Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

UK Trade & Investment www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk
Government organisation that supports both UK companies trading internationally and overseas enterprises seeking to locate in the UK.

BOPCAS - British Official Publications Current Awareness Service www.bopcas.com
BOPCAS is based on data drawn from the Ford Collection of British Official Publications in the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton. BOPCAS includes bibliographic information on Acts of Parliament, Command Papers, Departmental Publications, Green Papers, House of Commons Bills, House of Commons Papers, House of Commons Library Research Papers, House of Lords Bills, Standing Committee Reports. Priced service.

Houses of Parliament www.parliament.uk
Links to Hansard for both the House of Commons and House of Lords, information about MPs (Members of Parliament) and Peers, committees, research papers, Public Bills before Parliament, questions for oral or written answer (Order Book), votes and proceedings, Register of Lords' Interests.

Parliament Live www.parliamentlive.tv
A co-operative venture between Westminster Digital, Virage and Magic Lantern, Parliament Live shows live broadcasts of the UK Parliament when in session. There is also an archive that can be keyword searched.

Her Majesty's Stationery Office www.hmso.gov.uk
Access to the full text of Acts of Parliament starting from February 1996 and Statutory Instruments (SIs) from January 1997. Acts and SIs are generally published on the Web site within 24 hours of being published in printed form. The Stationery Office's online bookshop can be found at Clicktso (www.clicktso.com)

London Gazette www.london-gazette.co.uk
The London Gazette, first published in 1665, is the oldest, continuously published newspaper in the United Kingdom. It contains a wide range of office notices including State, Parliamentary and Ecclesiastical notices, Transport and Planning notices as well as Corporate and Personal Insolvency notices. Supplements cover Honours and Awards, Premium Bonds, Armed Forces Promotions and Re-gradings, Companies' information and a Quarterly Index. There is free access to a selection of sections. Full access available by subscription.

The Government Says www.thegovernmentsays.com
This site pulls together news releases from various UK government departments. Produced and maintained by Democracy.org.uk - "a loose collective of like-minded individuals who believe that there is little wrong with UK society that a healthy mixture of transparency and public engagement won't fix." RSS feed available.

Elections

United Kingdom Election Results www.election.demon.co.uk
This fast-loading, no-nonsense site compiled by David Boothroyd has detailed data on UK parliamentary elections since 1983; miscellaneous election statistics such as smallest majorities since 1918, top and bottom ten turnouts, list of members expelled since the Restoration (1660); European Parliamentary elections since 1994; and Labour Party National Executive Committee election results.

Northern Ireland Elections Site www.ark.ac.uk/elections/
An excellent site providing information about elections that have taken place in Northern Ireland since 1885. There are also descriptions and links to political parties and useful books.

Parliaments and Assemblies

UK Houses of Parliament www.parliament.uk

Scottish Parliament www.scottish.parliament.uk

National Assembly for Wales www.wales.gov.uk
Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru www.cymru.gov.uk

Northern Ireland Assembly www.niassembly.gov.uk

Tracking UK Legislation

Tracking legislation through parliament can be done relatively easily. The difficulties start when you want to find amendments to existing legislation and up to date copies of amended Acts. For example, HMSO - UK Legislation at http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts.htm provides free access to Public General Acts as originally passed by the UK Parliament but does not republish them when they are amended. For the consolidated amended full text, you will usually have to resort to a priced services. Westlaw.uk (www.westlaw.co.uk/overview.htm) is updated on a weekly basis. It gives you the consolidated full text and allows you to see how the law stood both before and after amendments. LexisNexis (www.lexisnexis.co.uk) provides access to the full, amended text of Acts of Parliament and Statutory Instruments in England and Wales and legislation of the Scottish Parliament. 

For new legislation and amendments, there are several free resources. UK Parliament Bills before Parliament can be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pabills.htm. A complete list of public bills introduced in Parliament in the current session, together with information about their progress through Parliament appears in the Weekly Information Bulletin (www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmwib.htm). The Bill Index (bills.ais.co.uk), owned by The Stationery Office, provides links to the full text of bills, the Hansard debate and any proposed amendments.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs (www.dca.gov.uk/legist.htm) has a page were you can track progress on current legislation for which the Department is responsible and also access details of past legislation that has been implemented. There is a set of publications within the site belonging to the Electoral Commission. The list is not easily accessible so go to the home page at http://www.electoralcommission.gov.uk/ and then search on "legislation tracker".

There is a free bill tracker in the Butterworths site at http://nxtpresa.butterworths.co.uk/freelaw/billtracker/bills.asp. This details the progress of all public Bills before Parliament in the current session and is updated daily when Parliament is sitting.

If you are totally confused by UK legislation and the procedures involved Stephen Young has written two excellent articles on the topic:

The Electronic Parliament: Resources for Tracking U.K. Legislation. Stephen Young http://www.llrx.com/features/e_parliament.htm. Published November 15, 2001

Researching Primary Legislation of the United Kingdom. Stephen Young http://www.llrx.com/features/uklegis.htm. May 2003

European Union (EU)

Europa europa.eu.int
Information on EU goals and policies, directives, green and white papers. There is a directory of Commission offices, profiles of commissioners, who does what, agencies and bodies in the EU. See also the Euro-Parliament site on www.europarl.eu.int which provides an overview of the workings of the European Parliament, press releases, political composition and committees.

Maastricht Treaty europa.eu.int/en/record/mt/top.html

Eur-Lex europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/index.html
"The Portal to European Union Law". Provides access to the Official Journal, treaties and legislation. Now incorporates CELEX which is no longer updated.

Celex europa.eu.int/celex/
No longer updated no longer updated since 1 January 2005. It can still be used to search for documents dated before 31 December 2004.

TED ted.eur-op.eu.int
Full coverage of open calls for tender and updated daily (Supplement to the Official Journal).

Cordis www.cordis.lu
Cordis (Community Research & Development Information Service) is "the European Commission's information service on European Research and Innovation activities". There is information on its Sixth Framework Program and news and information on all aspects of the EU's research and development in all areas.

EU Business www.eubusiness.com
EUbusiness is an independent EU information service. Services include a daily overview of European political and business news, information on EU legislation and EU business developments, EU finance, information on EU programmes relevant to industry sectors. There are also progress reports on draft legislation, help on how to do business in European countries.

EIRO European industrial relations observatory on-line www.eiro.eurofound.ie/
The European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) is a major project of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. EIRO initiates, collects, stores, disseminates and provides access to information and analysis on developments in industrial relations in the EU Member States, plus Norway, and at European/international level.

US

FirstGov www.firstgov.gov
The FirstGov portal aims to provide easy, one-stop access to all online US Federal Government resources.

Governments on the WWW: United States of America www.gksoft.com/govt/en/us.html

The Whitehouse www.whitehouse.gov

FedWorld Information Network www.fedworld.gov

GovEngine.com - Federal, State & Local Government and Court Resources www.govengine.com

US Federal Government Agencies Directory www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html
Straightforward listing of US Federal Government Agencies and their Web sites.

GrayLIT Network www.osti.gov/graylit/
Provided by OSTI (Office of Scientific and Technical Information), this site gives access to the gray literature of the US Federal Agencies. The network is made up of five databases: Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Report Collection, DoE Information Bridge Report Collection, The EPA National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS), NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) Technical Reports and the NASA Langley Technical Reports.