UK Parliament (Hansard) exceed ROI expectations with publishing automation

Summary

The Departments of the Official Report (Hansard) of both Houses of Parliament are responsible for producing, for their respective Chambers, publications consisting of reports and proceedings of debates, together with external material such as Written Answers and Written Ministerial Statements. Both daily parts and cumulative bound volumes are produced.

The whole production process, from reporting to production and publishing in multiple formats, is done within incredibly tight timescales. Speeches made by members up to 2.00am will be in the printed Hansard the same morning by 7.30am. In addition, every 2-3 weeks, a Bound Volume is created which takes the corrected content from every daily part into a single consolidated publication.

Key Issues

  • Multiple authors
  • Cross-media output required for print, web and data feeds
  • Large volumes of content with hundreds of XML files produced every night
  • Complex document requirements including indexes for both individual publications, and over multiple publications
  • Collation of content components to produce bound volumes
  • Mission critical system needs to be fast and reliable.

Solution

Using the Mekon solution the Hansard Production Unit (HPU) team are able to compose the documents along with front and back covers, column numbers, running headers and also create contents and index pages at the touch of a button. Once content edits and formatting changes have been applied, the system outputs print ready PDFs for sending to the printer, HTML for the Parliament website and XML for the Parliamentary Information Management System (PIMS) at the touch of a button. The improved process ensures more content from each daily debate can be included within each publication therefore reducing “over-matter” which traditionally would be printed in the next daily part.

Features/Benefits

  • Enabled Hansard to bring publishing in-house for far greater than expected project Return on Investment (please click ‘more info’ to request details)
  • Mekon Notus and XyEnterprise XPP typesetting system automates production
  • Delivers output in PDF, HTML and XML at the touch of a button
  • Provides fast batch pagination with manual control
  • Outputs in 2, 3 and 4 column format
  • Automates production of printed and electronic tables of contents and indexes
  • Collates content to produce bound volumes
  • Streamlines production ensures publication with tight timescales