I have been awarded a grant from the Research and Public Policy Partnership Scheme 2020 to support on-going collaboration between the ParlRulesData.org team, the House of Commons Library (HCL) and the Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS).

The ParlRulesData project digitilizes, analyzes and makes available historical, machine-readable records of parliamentary rules (“standing orders”, “rules of procedure”) through a dedicated data website, ParlRulesData.org (launched in July 2019). The HCL is an independent research and information unit, providing impartial information for UK Members of Parliament. The PDS is a specialized service supporting the House of Commons, the House of Lords and Parliament staff on their IT and digital needs.

Our collaboration project aims to bring significant benefits in terms of facilitating political transparency, public data access and democratic accountability. HC Standing Orders – the focus of our proposed partnership — govern the process by which parliament considers important elements of public policy – primary legislation, secondary legislation, and even treaties. Making good policy requires clarity and transparency about which parliamentary rules are applicable, how they should be complied with, and – in retrospect – whether they have been followed correctly.

David Doyle and I are seeking to recruit a postdoctoral Research Associate to work on computational coding of legislative texts as part of our team on the project ‘Measuring Government Policy with Text Analysis’, a 12-month project funded by the John Fell OUP Fund. More details about this position can be found here.

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