Noticeboard

Future of the Weekly Information Bulletin

The House of Commons Information Office has been undertaking a strategic review of its operations. As part of this some of its core activities have been reviewed and assessed as to how it might best achieve its aims.

The Weekly Information Bulletin (WIB) is a long standing publication that has changed relatively little in appearance despite the advances in IT that have taken place during its existence. Behind the scenes the compilation of the data used to produce the Bulletin is increasingly accomplished using databases that are updated daily.

An outcome of the review has been that the HCIO stops producing a hardcopy Bulletin subsequent to the General Election. There has been very little response to the note placed in the WIB over the past few weeks but from what response we have had, it would appear that the main sections used are Forthcoming Business and the Public Bill List. We believe that we could provide this information electronically in a more up to date way than would be possible with a weekly hardcopy document. We could even provide the ability to download printable pages (comparable to the format in the WIB) up to date as of the same morning.

We intend to conduct a proper consultation of subscribers to the Bulletin to ensure that the information our subscribers find useful will be replicated in a useful format through the Parliament website. In the meantime, we will continue to produce a full electronic version of the Bulletin (in pdf format) until we have suitable replacements in place.

Please email all comment to hcinfo@parliament.uk

The next Bulletin will be published on Saturday 22 May 2010

General Election May 2010:

Parliament will be dissolved on Monday 12 April 2010

The General Election will take place on Thursday 6 May 2010

The new Parliament will be summoned to meet on Tuesday 18 May, when the first business will be the election of the Speaker and the swearing-in of members.

State Opening will take place during week commencing 24 May 2010, on a date to be confirmed.

Palace of Westminster Summer Opening 2010:

The Houses of Parliament will be open to the public at the following times:

Saturdays from 3 July onwards - with tours operating every few minutes between 9.15am and 4.30pm

August 2nd - 27th :

Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday between 9.15am and 4.30pm.

Wednesday and Thursday between 1.15pm and 4.30pm

September and October:

Monday, Friday and Saturday between 9.15am and 4.30pm.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 1.15pm and 4.30pm.

Tickets are available to buy online through www.ticketmaster.co.uk/housesofparliament (external website)

or by phoning 0844 847 1672.

House of Commons calendar for the 2009/2010 session:

The Leader of the House announced the following recess dates for the 2009/2010 session:

Christmas recess 2009

The House rose on Wednesday 16 December 2009 and returned on Tuesday 5 January 2010

Spring half term recess 2010

The House rose on Wednesday 10 February 2010 and returned on Monday 22 February 2010

Easter recess 2010

The House rose on Tuesday 30 March 2010 and returned on Tuesday 6 April 2010

www.parliament.uk

The Parliament website provides information on parliamentary proceedings, membership of both Houses and general information on a wide range of parliamentary matters.