Central application for local legislation

Acronym of the case:

CVDR

Web address of the case:

http://www.overheidheeftantwoord.nl/producten...

Country of the case:

Netherlands

City/region:

National

Posting Date:

30 November 2009

Last Edited Date:

03 December 2009

Author:

Onno Muchall (ICTU)

legal | local government | XML

Type of initiative

Project or service
Strategic initiative

Case Abstract

A web based application for the publication of Dutch local legislation on the internet

The problem
In the Netherlands all governments must publish their legislation for the public. For local governments it was customary to have a paper version of local legislation available on demand at the local government archives. When legislation is changed only specific alterations are published. In order to understand what the complete text of a regulation is, one must go to the local archives and put together the original text and the later alterations. (as shown in the appendix presentation)

With the development of the Internet and the technological possibilities it provides the Dutch government decided that this current practice must change.

First of all the local governments must publish their complete legislation on the Internet.
Second of all the legislation must be consolidated. This means that alterations are inserted to the original text and in this way you get a complete text of the regulation at a specific moment in time.

The next the question occurred how local governments should achieve this goal?
To provide them with a solution the Dutch national government decided to build one central application for the local legislation. In Dutch called the â€œCentrale Voorziening Decentrale Regelgevingâ€Â or CVDR. They asked ICTU a government organization in which different governments participate to realize electronic government initiatives to build it.

The CVDR has been build and since 1 October 2008 local governments can publish their legislation on the Internet by means of the CVDR. This nationwide publication system is freely open to all local governments.

The product outline of the CVDR
The CVDR is a central database which must be filled by local governments. There are two ways of filling it.

(the system architecture can be seen in the Powerpointpresentation in the appendix)

First it is possible to use the web based direct entry module. In this module the government can upload their legislation. The module provides the necessary steps for conversion to the required XML format and tools for Internet publication.
Secondly it is possible to fill the CVDR with a web service interface between local systems and the CVDR.

At the business end of the system the legislation is published on www.overheid.nl/decentraleregelgeving/Â By using the web service governments can also to publish on own Internet site.

CVDR offers many advantages for both citizens legal professionals and governments:

Better service and information for the general public (legislation 24 hours and 7 days in the week available on the Internet).
Local governments have a reliable, complete and simple overview of all applying and expiring legislation;
Local governments are taking an important step towards the introduction of the EU Services Directive. This directive obliges government organizations to show the applicable legislation on the Internet.
And last but not least the CVDR system is a one stop shop where all local legislation is accessible and published in a complete reliable and actual manner. Also the legislation is in context and comparable with relevant legislation of other governments.

For interested parties a fully functional demo version of the CVDR technology has been made and put on the Internet. The version is only available in Dutch. The URL and codes can be requested at regelgeving@overheid.nl

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

Sector

Crime, Justice and Law | Local/Regional Community Development

Start date - End date

January 2007 (Ongoing)

Date operational

October 2008

Target Users

Administrative | Citizen | Civil society | Intermediaries

Target Users Description

In the case of the CVDR there are a few different target user groups.
This is divided in several user groups.

First there are the users of the published law. This group can be divided in three groups.

First of all the general public who can easily access all Dutch law by means of the Internet.
Secondly the CVDR is a great advantage for legal professionals, civil servants, lawyers and judges because there is one place on the Internet where they can find all applicable legislation and trust they have the right and consolidated legislation (no disclaimers).
Third of all. All Dutch legislation had no copyright protection whatsoever. This means the government will provide any interested party with a copy of the legislation that is available in their systems. The parties can also download this freely by use of the web services. This is very interesting for publishers and builders of legal intelligence systems.

At the data entry side of the CVDR there are three user groups

First there are the local governments who use the web based entry module to put legislation on the Internet. Their civil servants can use the CVDR to publish their legislation on the Internet. This is why with the development of the entry module usability was of great importance. Every civil servant with only knowledge of the normal office software should be able to put legislation in the right format on the Internet. And because in the Netherlands there are over 500 local governments the entry module was made in a web based form
The second user group for data entry are the governments who enter data with a web service link between the CVDR and the local systems. The governments who use this are required to deliver their legislation in the right XML format. The web service provides all required functions to publish CVDR with the web service.
The third group is an hybrid of the two previous. These are government who enter their legislation with the entry module and use the web service to extract the legislation and copy it to their own systems. The conversion to the right XML is done by means of the entry module and in this way the local application don't need to be able to generate the right XML.

Accessibility for all kinds of users.
Because the CVDR is used to publish legislation it is important that the business (publication) end of the system is accessible for all kinds of users. With the development of the CVDR ICTU took in account the guidelines for accessibility and it is a goal in the short term development of the system that we meet the internationally recognized agreements for creating accessible web sites. The Dutch government has assembled these international standards in a quality model of 125 requirements called the Web Guidelines

But we don't stop at this point. Also we would like to further develop the web based entry module in a way that we as much as possible comply with the web guidelines. This can not completely be realized because of JavaScript technology but it is very important that were possible the CVDR complies. For example the entry module is already successfully used by a visually disabled (blind) local legal professional to place the legislation on the Internet.

Scope

Local (city or municipality) | National

Status

Operation

Language(s)

Dutch

Other

Frisian

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The CVDR is part of a complete E revolution in Dutch law publication. Until recently legislation was only published in extensive law books. With the development of Internet electronic versions of legislation appeared. The systems for publishing national law were developed a few years ago. For the local governments until recently a system did not exist. When the Dutch government was making plans about the publishing of law it became clear that it would be very useful if all legislation (national and local) would be available in the same format, reusable and exchangeable between the systems. Exchangeable was necessary because in some cases the same legislation has to be accessible at different levels in the government. Thus all systems have to function together in one big electronic legislation publishing environment.

Dutch legislation on the Internet
When the government became more accustomed to legislation on the Internet local authorities started placing their legislation on their own website. To prevent a wild growth in legislation sites the Dutch government acknowledged the fact that it would be useful to make a standard for publishing legislation of local governments on the Internet and to publish all legislation on the national sites www.overheid.nl and www.wetten.nl .

This standard was developed in corporation with the local governments. But with the introduction of the standards to the larger number of local governments it was concluded that only a standard would not be enough for reliable publication of legislation. More influence was needed in the system of putting legislation on the Internet. And the system should not be depended on locally maintained technology. The way of achieving this was by means of the CVDR technology.

Differences in publishing national law vs. local legislation
The main difference the national endeavor to publish the national law and the CVDR is that in case of the the national legislation the laws are transferred to the required XML format by using the services of an editing company.Â To do the same for the local governments would be to expensive. So the local governments must produce the legislation in the required XML format themselves. This can be achieved by means of the CVDR.

A place in Dutch history
With the national and local legislation combined it will be the first time in Dutch legal history that all Dutch law is available in one place and in the same format. To achieve this all governments are legally obliged to use the system. end of 2010 to achieve this.

European connection
The CVDR's successes are not only limited to Dutch benefactors. The European Services Directive has an obligation in it that all European governments should publish their relevant local legislation in a format that is available for other participants. The Dutch government decided that this would best be achieved by publishing the legislation on Internet. In this manner it will be easily available for companies and persons outside the Netherlands. Thus contributing to freedom of trade and especially the single market.

The future plans
The next step in the national law making is that the Dutch government can legally proclaim their law by means of the Internet. The Dutch national gazette in paper has been replaced by an electronic version. For local governments it will be possible to do the same proclamation of law in the nearby future. In this way the CVDR will be further developed. The CVDR itself however is at this a complete up and running application

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

IT infrastructures and products

Overall Implementation approach

Public administration

Technology choice

Standards-based technology

Funding source

Public funding national

Project size

Implementation: €1,000,000-5,000,000

Yearly cost:

€300-499,000

Implementation and Management Approach

Development

The largest problem by developing the CVDR was to keep in touch with the local Civil servants. A big issue in the Netherlands is to keep all different governments aligned. Especially when the central government develops services and applications for the local governments. Aim was to keep the central developments in line with the wishes, needs and desires of the local governments. To achieve this the selected project manager was an experienced local legal professional. Also there was a group of peers selected from the local governments which were regularly consulted during the building and development of the CVDR. Finally just before delivery of the CVDR two extensive user tests had been held. All these efforts were aimed to make the CVDR as user friendly as possible.

To shorten lines between the the builder, the project manager and the Executive. The methods of Prince2 where used as project management tools.

Implementation

After the completion of the build the further implementation by local government is done by an specific team consisting of an legal advisor, an account manager, a technical advisor and a product manager. For the support of the local government while implementing the CVDR consists of an designated help desk, an Internet community with E learning facilities and a workshop in which the legal surroundings and the working of the CVDR are explained. To further support the local government by implementing the CVDR an extra service is developed. This extra service consists of making the start collection in the CVDR for the local governments when they don't have the time to do that themselves.

Community of interest

For the further developments of the CVDR a community of local legal professionals is assembled to make decisions about the development strategy, change management, legal question surrounding legislation etc. The intellectual ownership of the CVDR is in the process of handing it over from the project manager to this group of legal professional. This form of ownership is in line with the paradigm that the CVDR is owned by all governments together. This community of interest is also facilitated with a community website were all Dutch civil servants can get access to the required knowledge for working with the CVDR, participate in a forum download information and relevant documentation and have access to an e learning application.

Costs

The CVDR is completely free of charge for local governments because all the Dutch governments combined own the system.

Technology solution

The CVDR technology consists of several components.
(the system architecture can be seen in the Powerpoint Presentation in the appendix)

The entry module:
A web application has been chosen because it is much easier to manage than a desktop application. In this project with over 500 local users throughout the Netherlands, this is a huge benefit. On the other hand, the technical capabilities and speed of browsers is very limited. This made it difficult meet the CVDRâ€™s requirements:

The entry module needed to comply with the following requirements:

Users must be able to convert their Word documents to the required XML format
The entry module must be very user friendly as users/authors do not need to have any affinity with technology.
The legislation must be made available in valid XML in the Dutch Law XML scheme.
All functions to publish legislation must be integrated in the entry module and usersÂ must not need extensive knowledge of E-publication or CMS systems to put legislation on the Internet.

There are different ways to comply with all these requirements. One of them is to choose an HTML editor but this means a conversion from HTML to XML. A conversion always includes the risk of loss of information. Word and Open Office are also options, as nowadays they can also produce XML. The problem however is that the XML produced does not validate against the Dutch law XML Schema. In developing a conversion, it quickly becomes clear that this XML, in the same way as HTML, does not include enough meaningful information.

The choice for a regular XML editor seems obvious.Â But then validation remains a problem as these type of editors are developed for expert users and only validate the XML at the authorâ€™s request. IfÂ the document contains errors then the editor will indicate a validation error and theÂ author must solve the problem in the XML. However, this cannot be expected of the CVDR target group.

The selected XML editor, Xopus, solves this validation problem by switching off all options in the interface that could make the document non-valid. This technique is called prevalidation (as opposed to postvalidation as in regular XML editors). Prevalidation helps to create a friendly environment in which the author cannot make errors and does not encounter cryptic error messages. Additionally, Xopus is a browser-based application (Xopus is an HTML page with JavaScript) which supports the XML Schema and other standards. This means the editor offers a good basis for the CVDR process interface.

A bit of WYSIWYM
User-friendliness is very important in the CVDR project. A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor is the normal way of achieving such user friendliness. In this case WYSIWYG also can also cause confusion. This confusion occurs because the structure of the text is not shown. A WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean : the interface shows the structure and the meaning of the XML and not only the presentation) editor can be an alternative.Â A WYSIWYM interface does require that the author clearly indicates the structure in the text and tries to imagine the end result. However we could not expect the user group to have a clear idea of the text structure. That is why a fully WYSIWYM interface is not suited for the CVDR user group.

In cooperation with a specialized communication bureau Eden design, a solution was found in the form of a hybrid between WYSIWYG and WYSIWYM. The document is displayed virtually identically during processing as during the on line publication. The structure is shown in the left margin. In this way the interface provides a visual aid for users, and at the same time provides a simple way via which to adjust the document structure.

Restructuring
Regulations have been made for many years, and this process has been modernized many times. From Word Perfect or Word Star files to Word. The current generation of regulations is almost completely stored in local system using unstructured Word files. In order to make these legacy documents suited for the CVDR, a specialized E-publishing bureau STIPP developed a state of the art converter that produces XML, which is valid according to the CVDR schema. However, in some cases this conversion of structures requires adjustments. A separate interface has been specially created for this. With the help of a clear interface and with just limited insight in the structure, the author is able to create a good structure for the text of the regulation.

The second component the web service
Some local governments already had systems to put legislation on the Internet. This done on a voluntary basis. With the arrival of the CVDR these governments had a problem because most of them didn't want to change their technologies. To make it possible for these government to connect with the CVDR an Web service module was added. The local software connect in a push pull combination with the CVDR and send the legislation in the correct XML over to the CVDR. It is also possible to connect with the CVDR and extract the legislation through the same Web services. In this way it is possible to change from working with the entry module and local software without losing the content. Or using both systems at the same time. This makes it possible for local governments to freely chose between software suppliers or change from supplier to the CVDR if they want it. Without the hassle of data migration or conversion.

cvdr screenshot

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

Benefits for the general public
The final results of the CVDR areÂ a complete and reliable collection of Dutch local law. 24/7 available on the Internet. All different local legislation's is available in one format and down loadable trough a web service free of copyrights. The citizens and legal professional use this legislation when they have legal questions or disputes with the local governments.

At this moment the collection is yet to be completed. Over 100 governments have completed to put their legislation on the Internet. Together there are over 10000 regulations made available by them. The other 400 are working on it. In Juli of 2009 a law was put into effect that obligates the local governments to place all their legislation in the CVDR before the end of 2010. In this way the Dutch legislation collection (about 50.000 regulations) in will be complete, reliable before the end of 2010. This is theÂ first time in Dutch history. Never was there a time when all Dutch law was available in one place and in one and the same reusable format. In this way there is no more legal need for law books whatsoever. This means the impact of this technology is very large indeed.

Benefits for the local governments legal professionals and the courts
In the times before the CVDR this legislation was only available on the demand at the local government archives. Each time a court a citizen or a legal professional needed the legislation they had either to go to the local archive for a copy or to ask the local government to send them a copy of the legislation. So there was alsoÂ a lot of work for all parties in legal procedures to have the right legislation available to all parties.

There are no known exact numbers of legal disputes and cases. This is because of the Dutch administrative law system. This system is divided in three phases.

The first phase is called the pre judicial phase. In this phase citizens put their case directly to the local government. The numbers of cases put before the individual governments are not exactly know. The best estimate is that the 500 local government on average have 300 till 400 cases each per year. In total the estimation will of cases in the first phase will be 150.000 to a 200.000.

The second phase in administrative law is the judicial phase. After having completed the first phase the case can be put to a regular court as a form of higher appeal. The number of cases put before the court are in total some 50.000 cases a year. (in all these cases the court expects the local government to produce a copy ofÂ the local legislation for all parties.) With the legislation being available on the Internet. These copies don't have to be produced anymore.

Finally the is the high appeal court which handles about 4000 cases each year. The also asked local governments to produce a copy of their legislation for the parties. The time and effort saved by having the correct and reliable legislation on the Internet is enormous.

Benefit or the local governments as users
The CVDR system is a complete and ready to use system for publishing legislation on the Internet. It is a web based application build in a environment were local knowledge, specialized knowledge of E publishing systems, specialized knowledge of law publishing systems and state of the art software are combined to create a user friendly on stop system to publish legislation. This system transfers the legislation to the right XML without the final user having to worry about it. The system was build as a central system but with respect for the local sovereignty.

So it is save to say the the CVDR is a huge benefit for all parties.

Track record of sharing

The CVDR is property of the Dutch government. The knowledge acquired in building it and also the application itself can be copied when the Dutch government decides so. In this manner we can share this application at will. ThroughÂ the fact that is it web based the CVDR is potentially available all over the world.Â This fact is literally used at this moment.

The CVDR abroad
The Netherlands are part of the Dutch kingdom. The CVDR was developed for the Netherlands itself. On the other site of the globe a several islands called the Dutch Antilles are part of the Dutch kingdom or related to it. Examples are CuraÃ§ao St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius. And there also is the country Aruba (all together some 280.000 citizens) .In the nearby future some of these islands will go on as an separate country and some of them join the Netherlands.
Although it was not intended when building the CVDR the Dutch government decided that we share the technology with these islands. In the first few months of 2009 the complete national legislation was put in the CVDR and also the local legislation of Bonaire The other two islands will follow soon. And when some of the islands become a country of their own they can use the CVDR to publish their legislation. In this way the technologyÂ is shared with other parties.

We can also share our visions with you
For people who are interested in the way that the CVDR works a fully functional demo version of the CVDR technology on the Internet has been made. The version is only available in the Dutch language and the URL and codes can be requested at regelgeving@overheid.nl

Lessons learnt

The first lesson learned is to keep things simple. The main user group for the entry module (local civil servants specialized in law) are mostly not very experienced in working with this sort of applications. Their experience level mostly doesn't exceed a normal Microsoft Office user. That is why the development was based on user friendliness. Always keep track with the end user and their problems. Make a final user test part of the acceptance procedures. Look and feel of the final application is very important, reserve sufficient funding for the lay out and make use of the services of a specialized communication bureaus.

Second lesson is don't make platinum bridges. A bridge must be strong enough to take the load and look nice but that is enough. In software development it is always easy to stray from you final goal by adding more and more features. Nice to haves etc. This is why software becomes to complicated for the final user. Stick to the goal and don't get distracted by making an application more complex than it needs to be.

And last of all find an builder who can understand your problem and work to an solution with you. Do this by some iterations. So you can see if the builder has understood the problem you like to solve. Keep the communication lines short. Use Prince2 method were needed and consult regularly with the interested parties.

Multimedia Content Select a Tab

There isn't any image for this case

There isn't any Video for this case