Here we go then. Week 51, Haçienda that then, as Michael assures us they say up North. And, as yet another calendar makes its way to the recycle bin, it’s time to sit back and take stock. Consider this our end of year review show, but with Joanna Lumley replaced by librarians and our computational ‘experts’ taking on the Peter Kay duties.
Our brand, spanking new Open Data Platform ends the year much as it started, being somewhat bereft of data beyond the odd testing spike. Which is obviously less than ideal. In better news, we really - honestly - think we’re getting close. The last working Friday of the year saw all hands on deck - at least, all available hands, Friday being the morning after the Christmas drinks the night before - for a reasonably good attempt at load testing Jianhan’s Single Triple Store Solution™. Which, happily, it seemed to survive. Jianhan notes that having the server doing the POSTing located in one part of Europe and the server on the receiving end of the POSTing sitting in an entirely different bit of Europe probably isn’t helping with performance. Still, it’s better than when Michael accidentally set up our beta search service - a service reliant on a couple of APIs located in south east England - somewhere in the US of A. We’ve all been there.
Sticking with the search service, the departure of Developer Jon back in March saw work grind to a juddering halt. Public sector recruitment never being easy, this was not a gap we could readily fill. Young Robert and Michael tried their best - god love ‘em - making a stumbling attempt to wrap Jon’s efforts in the parliamentary design system. But then Bootstrap’s grid system met Jon’s grid system, and the whole thing fell apart in their hands.
In better news, in April, our production Search and Indexing triplestore finally saw the upgrade it deserved, our Jianhan once more wielding his computational spanner in expert fashion. Librarians one and all expressed delight at its new and improved response times, no longer finding themselves with ample time to knit a jumper in the gap between request and response.
Our taxonomy management system was also on the upgrade pile in 2025. During the last few months of the year, Jianhan made magnificent progress, five of the thirteen applications that sit atop that system being reconfigured to play nicely with its reshaped APIs. Then data.parliament.uk developed a fire in the hold and Jianhan was sent in with a fire bucket and our very best wishes.
(We should probably do a section on data.parliament.uk, though it remains, in a very real sense, something of a mystery to us. Least said, soonest mended, as it were.)
Our taxonomical software may remain in limbo but 2025 saw new horizons for the data. Our beloved thesaurus now provides the backbone for our first ‘product’ on the road to providing a Single Subject View™ of the Library, in the shape of the Library Knowledge Base application. Librarians Anna, Emily, Ned, Phil, Silver and Susannah combined like Voltron into a truly terrific team.
The respective noses of Librarian Jayne and computational ‘expert’ Michael were never far from the grindstone, as they attempted to upgrade our Procedure Editor application to a Data Graphs-based replacement. At our last planning day of the year, they suggested the data would be there by Christmas, with testing to commence in the new year. Which Christmas was not specified, and it certainly wasn’t this one. Nevertheless, they assure us they are close. One last push perhaps.
While Procedure Editor continues on the long and winding road to replacement, its data found a new home in our shiny new Procedure Browsable Space™, cycling through stages from random reckon, to whiteboard, to breaking ground, to almost ready for the limelight, in a little under ten months. A grand design that would surely bring a smile to even Kevin McCloud’s face. Our plucky couple having opted to ‘project manage the build’ themselves, we’re pleased to observe that no one moved into a leaky caravan at any point. No work marriages were harmed.
This year’s Staying Power award for persistence, patience and perseverance in the pursuit of progress, process and providing paperwork goes to Boss ‘Brarian Bryn and Delivery Manager Lydia. Our use of Ruby on Rails hosted on Heroku has now been declared legal by the Parliamentary Computational Section’s Enterprise Architecture Council. This comes as something of a relief, given our psephological efforts have been running there since early 2024. Taking that down would have been somewhat embarrassing for all concerned.
Sticking with election results, Librarian Anna tidied data for by-elections in Parliaments 56, 57 and 58 into the sort of shape that would not shock a computer. Once by-elections for Parliament 55 are in there, we will finally be at general election / by-election parity. But that’s one for early next year. Not to be outdone, Data Scientist Louie chipped in with notional results for the 2005 general election. Another brick in the psephological wall.
With almost nothing to show for his efforts - at least not yet - Michael also dipped the occasional toe in waters psephological, all in preparation for the next general election. The productivity of his paddling was perceptibly boosted when Data Analyst Rachel offered up her SQL skills and helped nix a table or two. Deleting things is always nice.
Somewhat surprisingly, we arrive at the end 2025 as leading exponents of the Parliamentary Design System, Shedcode James having packaged it into a Ruby Gem and rolling it out across 11 of our 15 applications. And much improved they look too. Unless HTML brutalism is more your style. To be honest, it is ours.
In personnel / personal news, Librarian Claire left us, Librarian Emily gained a promotion, and Librarian Harry and Developer Jon will be (re)joining us in the new year. Our computational ‘experts’ remain unchanged and resolutely un-promoted. Let’s be honest, it seems unlikely at their age.
Three models emerged freshly repainted from the pixel shop in the form of our procedure ontology, procedure step annotation ontology and delegation ontology. Recommended if your Christmas reading pile is short on thrillers.
A whole slew of improvements have been made to our Library Knowledge Base / Subject Specialist Finder™ from data model, to data integration, to website presentation.
Shedcode James leant a helping hand with our Procedure Browsable Space™, meaning it no longer explodes when “smart” quotes make their way down Whitehall and into Westminster, through assorted computational pipes, before meeting a web browser that’s been told - quite reasonably - to expect UTF-8.
Our Procedure Browsable Space has gained a host of CSV download options, all of which await sign off - or indeed rejection - from Librarian Jayne. Do get in touch if you think we’ve missed any. Michael has also applied rel-canonicals from resources that transclude to the resources being transcluded from. It makes him happy and we don’t like to ask.
Shedcode James has applied the wisdom of Solomon to our standing orders application, which is now cleaved in two. There’s one for our crack team of librarians to make edits, and one for more general consumption. Not that Solomon cleaved anything in two of course. We scripture-knowledge sharks stick together.
Our much commented upon treaty procedure map - a print out of which would make a fine gift for the procedural librarian in your life - has gained two new steps, to describe a report being laid under section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020. Steps that have been actualised in the scrutiny of four treaties.
Librarian Emma has combed through 23 years worth of records relating to estimate days, linking each and every one to any recommendation of the Liaison Committee concerning areas for debate, business motions for said recommendations where moved in the Chamber, and any formal proceedings to approve the estimates following the debates. All of which our dear reader will be able to see once Jon gets back and fixes our beta search service. Providing we have some data in the Open Data Platform of course.
And with all that out of the way, it only remains for us to wish our dear, dear reader the very best of fortunes for the new year. May your data points always reconcile, your URIs dereference to informational resources, and your computational pipes never experience blockages.