About Hansard

This page includes information about Hansard production methods, publication formats and processing times.
Production methods
The first stage in the production of all Official Reports involves converting recorded sound to a text which can be edited. In Tynwald Court and the House of Keys, this first stage is done using pioneering Voice Recognition technology. In the Legislative Council and Select Committees, the first stage is currently undertaken by audio typists although plans are in place to roll out Voice Recognition to all our Reports.

Click here for the full text of an article about Voice Recognition by Speaker of the House of Keys Steve Rodan SHK, which was published in The Parliamentarian in 2008.

The editorial process gets underway as soon as a text is available. This means that, for Tynwald Court and the House of Keys, we can start producing edited text within hours of the beginning of a session.
Publication formats
We currently publish our Official Reports in three phases. All of these are fully edited, thus constituting an authoritative record of the relevant proceedings.
  1. During a sitting, we aim to upload “Rolling Hansard” files to the “Early Publications” area of the Tynwald website as soon as sufficient text has been edited.
  2. As soon as possible after the session has been completed, we publish it in “Early Publication” format, replacing the final “Rolling Hansard” file. In the “Early Publication” format there is one file for each morning (A), afternoon (B) or evening session (C). Tynwald Written Answers appear in a separate file (D), while Keys Written Answers are included within the file for the relevant morning. Files are published with the date of the sitting and the relevant session letter e.g. ‘Tuesday 16 June 2009 – EPT160609C’
  3. Finally we convert the “Early Publication” files for each day into a fully formatted printed report in the traditional two-column format. The fully formatted reports are available in hard copy from the Tynwald Library. They are also published on the Internet, at which point the corresponding files are removed from the “Early Publications” area. To access the fully formatted Hansard series, follow the “Hansard” link from the Tynwald home page and select the relevant year from the drop-down list.
Publication timescales
Our priority is to publish each sitting in “Early Publication” format as soon as possible after the sitting has finished, without compromising on quality. The time taken varies according to the sequence, length and complexity of sittings. For guidance, we can normally meet or exceed the following timescales:
  • Tynwald Court, first day – 3 working days
  • Tynwald Court, second day – 5 working days
  • House of Keys – 3 working days
  • Legislative Council – 6 working days