Orders in Council

Privy Council Order in Council Bundles

A new UK bundle type has been introduced for submitting SIs to be made by the Privy Council at its regular meetings and then submitted by the Privy Council Office (PCO) for registration and onward publication.  The UK Order in Council bundle is the fourth bundle on the UK SI bundle carousel. Orders in Council should not be confused with Orders of Council which are submitted by PCO itself - if in doubt please seek clarification from the Privy Council Office.

Please note:  the information regarding the process for submitting, registering and publishing Orders in Council is currently being compiled and this section of Tools and Guidance will be further updated in the coming weeks.  If you require specific guidance that is not currently covered here, please contact the Privy Council Office, the SI Registrar or the legislation.gov.uk Publishing team as appropriate to the nature of your query.

Orders in Council for approval at Privy Council Meetings

The submission process for Orders in Council is quite similar to that used to submit other UK SI bundle types, however some additional documents are required by the Privy Council Office on Step 2 (Upload) and the Privy Council  meeting date is required on Step 3 (Registration) - this should be automatically extracted from your SI document.  You will also note on Step 4 (Publishing) that your entitlement to free copies is reduced to accommodate the copies of the SI required by PCO. On Step 5 (Review) you are certifying that the SI is approved by the Minister for submission to the Privy Council.

The additional documents required for PCO use are the Formal Letter and Ministerial Approval which are mandatory and the laying letter(s) if applicable.  If more than one laying letter is required, please use the "Add other document" option and select "Laying Letter".  Please note that these documents are not published with the other documents associated to the Order in Council.  In the rare cases where Ministerial Approval is not required, you should upload a PDF of the first page of the Order of Council which states "Ministerial Approval not required" in place of the Minister's signature.  Please contact PCO if you require further information regarding these required documents.

The journey that an Order in Council bundle proceeds along once the bundle is submitted also varies slightly in that the bundle will initially be sent to the Privy Council Office for them to review the documents supplied and then approve these for registration once the Privy Council Meeting has taken place.  You will receive additional email notifications of these steps in the process, and there is also a new status indicator on the bundles tracking page to show the status of PCO Approval.  

You will need to submit your Order in Council bundles by the final document submission date stipulated by PCO.  PCO still require copies of the SI in advance of the submission date and these should be supplied using the existing email process - if in doubt about which submission route to use, please seek clarification from the Privy Council Office. 

Please note: your Order in Council will be subject to Validation on submission and you should make sure that the SI passes validation checks. You must correct any high impact validation errors, and should address any low impact errors or warnings where possible before you submit your Order in Council bundle.  You will have the option to pay TSO to correct any low impact validation errors on your behalf on submission.

PCO can send bundles back to Departments where they find issues with the information or the documents supplied. This will trigger an "APPROVAL ACTION REQUIRED" email and you should make the required amendments and resubmit your bundle using the tracking screen. Once PCO approve the bundle after the Privy Council meeting has taken place, you will receive email notification of this. This does not mean that your SI has passed all checks, the bundle then proceeds to registration and publication where the standard registration and publication checks will be carried out and you will be required to act upon any action required emails you receive from the system in relation to these steps of the process. PCO will be copied on all system emails associated with an Order in Council bundle but it is you who must complete any action required.

Orders in Council pertaining to Northern Ireland

Some Orders in Council pertaining to Northern Ireland, but not all,  are considered to be primary legislation.  Where you have an Order in Council of this nature, it is imperative that you include a Northern Ireland subsidiary number place holder in your SI document and include messages to both TSO (on Step 4 - Publishing) and to the SI Registrar (on Step 5 – Review) to state that this Order in Council needs to be treated as primary legislation.  There are significantly different publication requirements for both electronic and print publication of primary legislation for Northern Ireland and including this information will allow these to be fulfilled.

Draft Orders in Council to be laid before Parliament

Any Order in Council which needs to be laid in draft by the Department for approval by Parliament or the House of Commons (or any other legislature) before being made should be submitted using the UK Draft SI bundle as is current practice.  Any interaction with PCO regarding draft Orders in Council continues to be an off-line process and PCO guidance should be sought regarding their requirements in relation to draft Orders in Council.