Advice to Government Agencies on printing standards for documents presented to Parliament.

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Advice to Government Agencies on printing standards for documents presented to Parliament.

Parliamentary Papers series

Advice for Government Agencies

Format and size requirements
Paper and cover requirements
Tip-ins and inserts
Stock numbers, delivery and where to get advice
Corrections

Printing standards for documents presented to Parliament

Any document presented to Parliament may be included in the Parliamentary Papers series (PPS). Adherence to these printing standards ensures that a tabled document conforms to the series' standards, with minimal additional cost to author bodies.

Production quality and value for money Commonwealth Government agencies are expected to obtain value for money in procuring services to publish and print documents. Those responsible for the preparation of parliamentary documents should be aware that excessive or unnecessarily expensive production has, in the past, attracted criticism.

The parliamentary staff listed in the Advice section of this document will provide advice on the PPS.

Format

Printed documents prepared for presentation to Parliament must be in the international standard size of B5 (250 mm deep x 176 mm wide). B5L (landscape) and 'Canberra B5' are not permitted.

Colour and illustrations

Government policy encourages restraint in the presentation quality of documents, and, while restraint does not necessarily preclude colour printing, it has implications for the way in which colour is used.

Black ink is to be used for text and illustrations. A colour or colours in addition to black may be used if essential for the proper understanding of information such as complex maps or diagrams. Line drawings, graphs, charts, photographs and other illustrations may be included, provided they are essential to a better understanding of subjects discussed in the text.

Paper

Recycled papers and boards have been deemed by the National Archives of Australia to be unsuitable for archival requirements. (Advice on selecting paper is provided in the National Archives Advice Note 30, Which Paper?, October 1998).

Paper for text and illustrations - Up to 100 gsm coated or uncoated publication paper, A2 paper, or uncoated woodfree general book paper, white only. Expensive A1 quality art and cast-coated papers should be avoided.

Tinted insert paper - (up to 100 gsm) may be used for non-textual material, such as statistical or financial sections in annual reports. In saddle-stapled documents, tinted pages must be arranged to form either a complete wrap-around or an inserted section.

Cover and binding

Up to 250 gsm cover paper or art board. The caliper should not exceed 300 microns. Expensive materials such as cast-coated or metallic boards should be avoided.

Specifications for the binding of any publication presented to Parliament must allow for subsequent rebinding in annual parliamentary papers volumes. Thus loose-leaf binding, side stapling, cleat binding and spiral or plastic comb binding; gate-fold covers and die-cut covers are not permitted.

Documents:

with a text thickness over 5 mm are to be perfect bound, burst bound or section sewn with drawn-on cover,
with a text thickness under 5 mm are to be saddle stapled,
of four to eight pages should be produced as an eight-page booklet (with blank pages as necessary) and have a separate cover,
of four pages or less (including a cover/title page) should be printed as a self-covered four-page unit.

Tip-ins and inserts

Tip-ins (individual leaves loose or glued into a folded section) should be avoided wherever possible because they slow down production and add to cost. Loose inserts will be omitted from documents included in the Parliamentary Papers series. Maps are to be folded and inserted in a B5 envelope glued to the inside back cover of the document.

Number of copies required for the PPS

Note: This section details the quantity for the PPS only. Author bodies must also include in the print run quantities required for tabling, the two Government distribution systems, and the author body's own quantities.

150 bound B5 international portrait size copies are required for the Parliamentary Papers series. The quantity comprises:

110 copies trimmed to B5 size (250 mm deep x 176 mm wide), and
40 untrimmed copies (this approximately 258 mm deep x 180 mm wide and is necessary for subsequent rebinding into annual volumes).

All 150 copies are to be delivered to:

PPS
Canprint Communications Pty Ltd
16 Nyrang Street
FYSHWICK ACT 2609

It is in the interests of author bodies to file a dispatch docket signed by CanPrint staff as proof of delivery.

In 1996 the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet announced that author agencies were to pay for the cost of printing the extra copies required for the Parliamentary Papers series.

Advice

When making printing arrangements, author agencies may seek advice on whether the document is likely to be required for the series:

agencies whose name commences with A-M	Papers Officer, Department of the Senate telephone (02) 6277 3037
agencies whose name commences with N-Z, Auditor-General's reports and Budget documents	Assistant Papers Manager, Department of the House of Representatives (02) 6277 4800

As a general guide, if a document was included in the Parliamentary Paper series last year, it is likely to be included in future.

Other responsibilities and costs

If a tabled document is ordered to be printed but is of a quality below that specified for Parliamentary Papers, the production costs involved to address any poor quality aspects will be borne by the author agency.

Author agency must also bear all costs incurred in the resetting, reformatting, reprinting or binding of documents to be included in the PPS if their document:

has not been produced in accordance with the standards,
has not been provided to the Parliament's distribution agent in a timely fashion, and
the 40 copies have been left untrimmed, but oversize, requiring pre-trimming to 258 mm deep x 180 mm wide.

Corrections

An author body finding errors or omissions or needing to notify corrections in its tabled document, should prepare and arrange corrigenda or erratum slips in accordance with instructions issued by the Tabling Officer, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. (Refer to paragraph 52 of the Guidelines for presentation of ministerial statements, reports and government responses to the Parliament).

For advice on the provision of slips for documents in the Parliamentary Paper series, author bodies should contact the parliamentary staff listed in the Advice section.