Government and Parliamentary publications (official publications)

Parliamentary publications: Command Papers

Command papers include statements of government policy, also known as White Papers; consultation documents, also known as Green Papers; the reports of Royal and Departmental Commissions; annual accounts and the reports of Commissions of Enquiry and international treaties.

A command paper reference will look like this:

Author (Year) Title (command paper reference number). Place of publication (this is optional): Publisher. Web address and date accessed (only if found on the Internet).

Examples of references

Department of Health (2011) Enabling excellence: autonomy and accountability for healthcare workers, social workers and social care workers (Cm 8008). The Stationery Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216580/dh_124374.pdf Accessed 12 July 2014.

Home Office (2003) Identity cards: the next steps (Cm 6020). London: The Stationery Office.

Example of citing in the text of your work: Home Office (2003) or (Home Office 2003). It is useful to your lecturer to note in the sentence surrounding the citation that this is a command paper, for example: “In the command paper Cm 6737 (Home Office, 2003) it states that…”

Here are the full rules about each piece of information:

1. Author (the Government department, committee, or organisation submitting the paper)
2. Year (in round brackets)
3. Title of the command paper, which must be in italics. This must include command paper number (Cm) (in round brackets), which must be exactly as it is given in the document, including the prefix Cmd/Cm, etc.- these are meaningful.
4. (This is optional) Place of publication (almost certainly London)
5. Publisher (almost certainly The Stationery Office).

If you used the paper online:

6. Web Address
7. “Accessed” followed by the date.

Laws and other legal documents

Note that this is the Harvard style of referencing laws and other legal documents- students from the School of Law on LLB or LLM courses need to use the OSCOLA style.

Acts of Parliament (statutes)

An Act of Parliament reference will look like this:

Act name and year Web address and date accessed (only if found on the Internet).

Examples of references

Health Act 2006

Health Service Commissioner for England (Complaint Handling) Act 2015

Local Transport Act 2008 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/26/contents. Accessed 31 August 2016.

Example of citing in the text of your work: Health Act (2006) or (Health Act 2006).

Note: A statute is divided into Sections (you write this like “s.1”), Subsections (written like “(1)” and Paragraphs (written like “(a)”). When talking about a specific point in a statute, you must cite the exact point in the body of your text. For example, if you are citing Section 16, Sub-section (2), Paragraph (b) of the Health Act 2006:

Example of citing in the text of your work when citing a specific point: Improvement notices can be issued where NHS bodies are not observing the code of practice relating to health care associated infections (Health Act 2006, s.16(2)(b)).

Yes, this does mean that your citation may be longer than your reference!

Here are the full rules about each piece of information:

1. The title of the Act including the date, which must be in italics (ignore the chapter number)

If you accessed the act online include the following:

2. Web address

3. “Accessed” followed by the date.