The
Office of Public Sector Information (
OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of
Her Majesty's Stationery Office (usually abbreviated as
HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. OPSI is part of the The National Archives of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and it is responsible for Crown copyright.
OPSI announced on June 21, 2006 that it was merging with The National Archives to create a joined-up approach to information management within government.
The
Office of Public Sector Information (
OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of
Her Majesty's Stationery Office (usually abbreviated as
HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. OPSI is part of the The National Archives of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and it is responsible for Crown copyright.
OPSI announced on June 21, 2006 that it was merging with The National Archives to create a joined-up approach to information management within government. This merger took place in October 2006. OPSI continues to discharge its roles and responsibilities from within the structure of The National Archives.
Controller of HMSO and Director of OPSI
The Controller of HMSO is also the Director of OPSI. HMSO continues to operate from within the expanded remit of OPSI. The Controller of HMSO also holds the offices of Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament, Queen's Printer for Scotland and Government Printer for Northern Ireland.
By virtue of holding these offices OPSI publishes, through HMSO, the
London GazetteThe London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the UK, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
,
Edinburgh GazetteThe Edinburgh Gazette, along with the London Gazette and the Belfast Gazette, is an official newspaper of the United Kingdom government...
,
Belfast GazetteThe Belfast Gazette, along with the London Gazette and the Edinburgh Gazette, is an official newspaper of the United Kingdom government. It is published by The Stationery Office , on behalf of Her Majesty's Stationery Office in Belfast, Northern Ireland.The Belfast Gazette was first published on...
and all legislation in the United Kingdom, including
Acts of ParliamentAn act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is a type of legislation called primary legislation. These acts are passed by the UK parliament in Westminster or the devolved administration in Scotland...
, Acts of the Scottish Parliament and Statutory Instruments.
The Controller of HMSO is appointed by Letters Patent to the office of Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. This office is separate from the functions of OPSI. Historically the role of Queen's [or King's] Printer extended to other official publishing responsibilities, e.g. the rights to print, publish and import the King James Bible and
Book of Common PrayerThe Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and of other Anglican churches, used throughout the Anglican Communion. The first book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with...
within
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
,
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union...
and
Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. The current holder of this office is
Cambridge University PressCambridge University Press is a printer and publisher granted a Royal Letters Patent by Henry VIII in 1534. It is the world's oldest continually operating book publisher...
.
History
HMSO was established as a new department of
HM TreasuryHM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy.- History :...
on 5 April 1786, when
John MayorJohn Mayor may refer to:*John Eyton Bickersteth Mayor , English classical scholar*John Mair , also spelled John Mayor, Scottish philosopher...
was appointed as its first "Superintendent". From 1822, all government departments were required to buy
stationeryStationery has historically meant a wide gamut of materials: paper and office supplies, writing implements, greeting cards, glue, pencil case etc.-History of stationery:...
through the open competitions and tenders operated by HMSO. HMSO also took over as official publisher from
HansardHansard is the traditional name for the printed transcripts of parliamentary debates in the Westminster system of government. In addition to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the UK's devolved institutions, a Hansard is maintained for the Parliament of Canada and the Canadian provincial...
in 1882. In 1889, HMSO was granted
Letters PatentLetters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of an open letter issued by a monarch or government, granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or to some entity such as a corporation. The opposite of letters patent are letters close , which are personal in nature...
under which it was appointed as Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament ("printer to Her Majesty of all Acts of Parliament"). These letters patent also appointed the Controller of HMSO as administrator of the rights of Crown copyright. HMSO also took over publication of the
London Gazette in the same year.
Most of its publishing functions were privatised in 1996 as a separate company known as
The Stationery OfficeThe Stationery Office is a British publishing company that was created in 1996 when the publishing arm of Her Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised. TSO is the official publisher and the distributor for legislation, Command paper and House Papers, Select Committee Reports, Hansard, and the...
(TSO), but HMSO continued as a separate part of the Cabinet Office. Prior to 1996, it was the publisher of virtually all government material, such as
Command paperA command paper is a document issued by the British government and presented to Parliament. White papers, green papers, treaties, reports from Royal Commissions and various government bodies can all be released as command papers, so-called because they are presented to Parliament formally 'By Her...
s, legislation and official histories. After 1996 the Controller of HMSO remained Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament and retained the role of administering Crown copyright.
The privatisation was not the final stage in HMSO's changing role. As part of the implementation of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
directiveA directive is a legislative act of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. It can be distinguished from regulations which are self-executing and do not require any implementing measures. Directives...
on the re-use of public sector information, it was decided that there was a need for a dedicated body to be the principal focal point for advising on and regulating the operation of public sector information re-use. That new body, created in 2005 is the OPSI.
External links
- OpenPSI
Open PSI is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and the UK Government, lead by the Office of Public Sector Information part of the National Archive, to trial a new form of community provisioned information service where researchers can interact with Public Sector Information...
the ( OpenPSI project)is a community effort to create UK government linked data service that supports research. It is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and the UK government, lead by Office of Public Sector InformationThe Office of Public Sector Information is the body responsible for the operation of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and of other public information services of the United Kingdom...
at the National Archive and is supported by JISC funding.