Start from the source, not from the draft#
A page begins with its sources, not with its text. Before anything is written about a rule, a fee or a process, the team reads the primary source in full: the GOV.UK guide through to its last section, the organisation's own help page, the section of the Act. Only then is the answer written, and every sentence that states a fact is traced back to the source it came from.
Which source settles a question#
When sources disagree, the higher one wins:
- Legislation settles what the law requires. If a guidance page and an Act differ, the Act is right and the page says so.
- GOV.UK and the devolved governments' sites settle what a public service asks for, what it costs and how long it says it takes.
- An organisation's own published guidance settles what that organisation asks for. A bank's rules are what the bank publishes, not what a forum says happened to someone.
- Judgments settle how a court has applied the law, and are cited by case name.
Another company's website is never a source for a rule, however confidently it states one.
The claims register#
The facts that recur across the site, such as the court fee for enrolment, the passport fee, who can make a deed poll and how many witnesses our deeds provide for, are kept in one register with their sources. A page quotes the register rather than restating the fact from memory, so the same figure appears the same everywhere. When the register changes, every page that uses the figure changes on the next build.
Re-checking#
- Every page, at least once every six months, against its sources.
- Every fee, every April, when government fees usually change, and whenever a source announces a change.
- Every source link, weekly, by a script that reports any page whose source has moved or gone.
- Any page a reader questions, as soon as the message arrives.
What the checked date does not promise#
It means a person confirmed the page against the named sources on that date. It does not mean the sources cannot have changed since, and it does not make the page advice about your own circumstances. Where a decision matters, read the source too; it is linked from every page for that reason.
