Last updated: 12 May 2010
Following an initiative in 2008 it was agreed that departments would hold lessons learned exercises on each of their Bill projects. The exercises would not be confined to working with OPC but would extend to the whole project and be designed to produce lessons that would help future Bill teams.
An official was nominated in each department to take responsibility for ensuring the exercises were held and for feeding back the output to L Secretariat and 1st PC.
The outputs are useful both within the departments preparing them to inform future departmental Bill team and more generally. The intention was that they should be collated into a document that would set out the lessons for all legislating departments and those at the centre involved in legislation. They could also be used, for example, for revising further editions of this document and of the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation.
A document setting out the lessons from the 2007-08 Session was prepared and distributed in 2009 and has been used for the latest revision of this document. The intention is that the process should be repeated each year so that the lessons learned each year can be passed on to future Bill teams.
Departmental teams should be prepared to participate in these exercises as soon as a Bill is finished and before the team disperses. They should help the nominated official to decide the best form for the exercise. They may wish to involve members of the OPC team, either as full participants with the members of the departmental Bill team, or as individuals it would be appropriate to consult in the process.