Content Review Policy
Why we have a review policy
UK law changes constantly. Statutes are amended, commencement orders bring provisions into force, court rules shift, and case law evolves. To stay useful and trustworthy, our content must be reviewed on a defined schedule โ not just whenever someone notices something is wrong.
Risk-tier review windows
Every reviewable page is tagged with a risk tier and a last reviewed date. The tier determines how often the page must be re-checked:
| Tier | Review every | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| High | 90 days | Immigration, employment, housing, family, criminal procedure, data protection, online safety, police powers, mental health |
| Medium | 183 days | Civil procedure, consumer, road traffic, public law, education, welfare benefits, tax, debt |
| Low | 365 days | Historical case law summaries, constitutional concepts, glossary entries with settled meaning |
What a review involves
- Re-checking every cited statute on legislation.gov.uk for current commencement, amendment, and repeal status.
- Re-checking every cited case on BAILII or other reputable databases for subsequent treatment.
- Verifying that procedural deadlines, fees, and forms are current.
- Refreshing official-source links.
- Updating the last reviewed date.
Stale-content detection
We run an automated stale-content report against every reviewable item on the Site. It flags pages whose last reviewed date is older than the review window for that page's risk tier. The report is the working queue for editorial refresh and is generated by npm run stale-content-report.
Why some pages may still be out of date
We are a free educational resource and our editorial capacity is finite. We prioritise high-risk content. If you spot something out of date or wrong, please tell us โ see the corrections policy for the process.
What we do when major legislation commences
When a significant Act or commencement order changes the law in an area we cover, every page tagged with that area is re-checked and either updated or marked for accelerated review. Pages are stamped with a fresh last reviewed date once the update is complete. See law-change monitoring for how we track upcoming legislation.
Who does the reviewing
Content is produced and reviewed by the UK Law Reference editorial team. Where appropriate, we seek input from qualified solicitors, barristers, or law-centre staff via the editorial partnership route at Contact. We do not publish content as having been "approved by" a particular lawyer unless that lawyer has expressly consented in writing and reviewed the final draft.