What is the subsidy?

The purpose of the subsidy is to facilitate public access to parliamentary and central government publications which are not available online.

The subsidy applies to eligible official publications purchased by local authority funded public libraries in the United Kingdom. Orders placed by a local authority’s central acquisitions unit will also qualify for the scheme, provided that the publications are for use by the local authority’s own public libraries.

The scheme does not preclude any organisation from producing and disseminating official publications, subject to any licensing conditions that may be in place.

What is the scope of the subsidy?

The subsidy applies to eligible publications from parliamentary and central government bodies in the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

What is the rate of subsidy?

The rate of subsidy is 50% of the invoiced price, net of any commercial discount offered by an intermediary supplier, excluding VAT.

The amount of subsidy available is cash-limited, and payment may be suspended if the demand for subsidy on qualifying publications in any one financial year exceeds the total annual budget. We will give you as much notice as possible in this eventuality.

Which official publications are eligible for subsidy under the scheme?

The subsidy applies to official publications which are not freely available online. This includes:

• Ordnance Survey maps
• Home Office Citizenship Guides
• Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency driver education materials
• other parliamentary or government information/publications which cannot be accessed freely on the internet (including subscription-based services)

The scope of eligible publications is kept under review. Intermediaries and libraries are kindly reminded that if they have arrangements which may relate to the subsidy this is at their own risk.

Which official publications are not eligible for subsidy under the scheme?

The subsidy does not apply to publications which are freely accessible online. An illustrative list of the publications not eligible for the subsidy includes:

• legislation (this has been out of scope since 2005)
• government Command and House of Commons Papers
• parliamentary House of Commons and House of Lords Papers
• House of Commons and House of Lords Bills
• statistical publications
• The Gazette
• Hansard
• other parliamentary or government publications which are only published online
• compilations of official publications with or without the inclusion of other official information

Official publications that become freely available online automatically fall outside the scheme.

The most recent amendment to the scheme’s scope was September 2015. Intermediaries that regularly submit subsidy claims to The National Archives were informed of the change as outlined in this letter (PDF, 0.09MB).

How does a public library obtain the subsidy?

There are two ways a library can claim the subsidy:

Subsidy provided at source

When a library purchases eligible official publications from one of the following intermediaries, the intermediary’s invoice will state the cover or subscription price of a publication less 50%. These intermediaries have been approved by The National Archives to provide the subsidy at source on eligible official publications:

• Coutts
• Dandy Booksellers
• Latitude Mapping
• Palgrave Macmillan
• The Stationery Office Ltd. (TSO)

The list of approved intermediaries may change from time to time.

Claims submitted to The National Archives must be accompanied by copies of relevant intermediary invoices to libraries which include: publications purchased, purchasing library, invoiced amount and subsidy amount.

For any subsidy claimed at source, we reserve the right to make audit checks by asking recipient libraries to verify the details of orders attracting the subsidy, including that the claimed for publications have been supplied and are in use in a public library. As part of the audit process The National Archives may also seek clarification from intermediary suppliers.

Claim directly from The National Archives

A library purchases the publication at full price from its preferred intermediary and submits a claim form to us, attaching copies of the invoices showing the price paid for each publication being claimed for. On receipt of a substantiated claim The National Archives will refund the subsidy to the library.

Is there a time limit on making claims?

All claims from public libraries or intermediaries must be received by The National Archives within three months of the date on the intermediary invoice to the public library. Claims received outside this time limit will not be accepted.

I have a query on which publications are eligible

Responsibility for policy and administration of the scheme lies with The National Archives. An intermediary that provides the subsidy at source should be able to advise on which of its publications are eligible for the subsidy. However, the final decision on the eligibility of a particular publication rests with The National Archives. If there is any doubt about eligibility, please contact us.

Any queries regarding the scope of the scheme, or the processing of claims, should be directed to official.publishing@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Publishing means making information available to the public. In the past this was done mainly through issuing printed copies of documents. Now there are many more options such as websites, print, DVD, e-publications and apps.

Apart from ensuring value for money, the challenge is to choose publication channels that support a publication’s status and provenance, as well as ensuring that the publication reaches the right audience.

Publishing industry processes and practices

Many government publications are important from a policy and historic perspective, whether or not they reflect current policy or practice. This means that certain publications, including those published through contracts managed by The National Archives, are published according to the standard processes and practices used by the book publishing industry:

• standards for web and print publishing
• International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)
• bibliographic data
• statutory legal deposit
• customer ordering services
• copyright

These processes support the classification and recording of the publications’ underlying status and provenance, ensuring availability to citizens and businesses, including identification by the book trade and library community, at publication and for the long term public record.

What to do if you are considering publishing options

If you are an official involved in publishing a government document that is not being published through The National Archives’ or other government publishing contracts, you are probably already considering publication options.

Publication options impact on a document’s availability to different types of users, now and in the future.

Consider whether users will place a long term value on the document, for example for use in legal proceedings, even though the document itself may be superseded as government polices and guidelines change. If so ensure that there is a process through which interested parties can obtain a copy of the publication. In many cases an online version will be sufficient; in others, users may require a print copy, for example to use in court or because the publication is very large and the online version is impractical. How would such requests be fulfilled? Would compliance with statutory legal deposit be sufficient?

Seek assistance from your organisation’s publishing, communications, legal and/or procurement teams at an early stage. You can contact The National Archives for publishing and copyright advice at official.publishing@nationalarchives.gov.uk or on 020 8392 5218.

An example of a government publishing contract is The National Archives’ contract for legislation which you can see on the Contracts Finder website.

If your document is a ‘green’ or ‘white’ paper, it probably meets the criteria for being published as a Command Paper.

If you need further advice, please contact The National Archives at the earliest opportunity for guidance and support.

Standards for web and print publishing

These standards will incur costs – check before the budgeting stage.

Website publication: government requirements, including those for accessible PDFs, are available in the Government Service Design Manual on GOV.UK. In addition there may be further requirements, such as file naming conventions, to ensure that a document can be clearly recognised within internal systems.

Print publication: these specifications are provided to the printer, or other supplier, to ensure that print copies are produced as required. They include print file specifications, quantity, schedule, format (A4 portrait, for example), colour, paper weight and quality, binding style and delivery instructions.

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)

It is good practice to allocate an ISBN to each publication produced by a government organisation, regardless of format.

ISBNs are unique 13 digit codes allocated to published works (but not to ephemeral items such as leaflets, posters, newsletters, press notices and so on). ISBNs are not limited to books that are published in print form. The ISBN is unique to an individual edition of a work and will be used by those in the library or the book trade to identify the document. Where a work is published in different formats (print, online, e-book and so on) a different ISBN is required for each format. Any translations will also be given a separate number.

It is the publisher’s responsibility to allocate an ISBN. Therefore government publications produced through the contracts managed by The National Archives will all be allocated ISBNs by the publishing contractor. However, if your organisation is the publisher (corporate documents, for example) it is responsible for allocating its own ISBNs to these publications.

Most countries have their own ISBN agency – in the UK this is Nielsen. If your organisation needs ISBNs, you can buy a batch from Nielsen. You need to supply bibliographic data to Nielsen in return.

Bibliographic data

The bibliographic record for a published document may include: the title, author, date of publication, publisher, page extent, format, ISBN, cover price and subject. It is important for the integrity of the public record that there is a comprehensive source of bibliographic data for all United Kingdom official government publications, including online-only publications, and that this information is disseminated through recognised publishing industry channels.

ISBNs and other bibliographic information identify uniquely a publication in a particular format. Publishers supply this data to Nielsen at, or before publication, and Nielsen disseminates it so that subscribers, commonly the book trade, libraries and re-users, can obtain copies of publications for their customers as soon as possible.

An ISBN enables users to find a publication without knowing the publisher. In addition, this unique identifier is particularly useful:

• when more than one organisation has been involved in the publication
• when responsibilities have moved from the originating government organisation to another body
• for publications in a series such as Command and House of Commons Papers
• to identify publications that only exist in a digital format, having gone out of print
• to identify the authoritative version of online-only publications

The library of the UK Parliament has a particular requirement to be able to trace all government publications.

In addition, bibliographic information can be added as metadata in the digital copies of publications which helps to support the re-use of the data included within the publication. An established metadata standard such as Dublin Core should be used where possible. Metadata can increase a publication’s accessibility and ‘findability’. Government web teams can provide guidance on this.

The responsibility for generating bibliographic information lies with the publisher (which can be the originating government organisation). Specifications for bibliographic services are therefore included in The National Archives’ publishing contracts.

The United Kingdom Official Publications Database (UKOP) offers a central catalogue of official government publications in the United Kingdom. The database is provided by a private sector company independently of government.

Statutory legal deposit

It is the publisher’s responsibility to comply with legal deposit. This applies to all publishers, including government organisations that publish their own material.

The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 requires that a copy of all works published in print in the United Kingdom is given to the British Library within a month of publication and copies are made available on demand to the other legal deposit libraries specified in the Act. The legal deposit libraries are:

• The British Library
• The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
• The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
• The Bodleian Library, Oxford
• The University Library, Cambridge
• The Library of Trinity College, Dublin

Regulations for the legal deposit of non-print works came into force in April 2013. The regulations allow the British Library and other legal deposit libraries to capture materials which are not published in print, and preserve them as part of a national collection for future generations. Materials within the scope of the regulations include non-print publications, websites and content behind login facilities. Guidance for publishers on the application of the new regulations has been produced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

From the start of the 2016-17 Parliamentary Session, the legal deposit of Command and House of Commons Papers will take place digitally instead of in print. The British Library will collect and preserve the PDFs of documents published on GOV.UK.

The British Library and the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries publish further information about print and non-print legal deposit and the libraries.

Customer ordering services

Publishing companies provide ordering services so customers can obtain their own copies of publications in the available formats.

The National Archives’ publishing contracts allow customers to order print copies. It is possible to place standing orders and subscriptions based on the content of the publication, the originating government organisation and by publication type. Standing order customers receive their copies within a day or two of publication. Our contracts also allow customers to order print on demand copies by email, post, phone and internet after publication.

Some companies also ‘push’ digital copies of pre-ordered government publications to their customers on a subscription basis. Government libraries often use such services.

Our publishing guidance is designed to help those working on official government publications. In particular, we hope this information will benefit those who are new to publishing.

We aim to promote a better understanding of standard publishing industry processes and practices that affect a document’s availability, accessibility, status and provenance at publication and after.

The role of The National Archives

The Keeper of Public Records is responsible under a Letters Patent from His Majesty The King for managing copyright on behalf of the Crown.

The Letters Patent also confer upon the Keeper the title of King’s Printer. The King’s Printer is responsible for setting the standards and overseeing the publication of certain government documents. These publications are:

• legislation
• statutory notices
• parliamentary papers, including Command and House of Commons Papers

The National Archives has produced specific guidance on the production of parliamentary papers (for example annual reports and accounts, ‘green’ and ‘white papers’ or independent reviews).

Find guidance on publishing for government organisations, including producing and publishing Command, House of Commons and un-numbered Act papers such as annual reports and accounts, policy papers, government responses and reviews.