Training Module: Preparing the Speaker's Brief

📘 Introduction

📚 Exercises

🛠️ Getting started

Before you can complete this exercise you should complete Training Module: Generating a Grouping List as this will provide you with the bill, amendments and groups you need to prepare a Speaker’s Brief.

✏️ Exercise 1: Generate the Speaker’s Brief at Consideration Stage

Once the Groups have been assigned, you are ready to generate a Speaker’s Brief. Most of it is auto-populated, however there are some necessary updates you will need to make.

Generate the Speaker’s Brief at Consideration Stage

Step 1: Generate the list and update the pre-populated rubric

Generate a Speaker’s Brief, selecting Consideration Stage and update the auto-populated list when it loads in the Editor.

Detailed steps to update the pre-populated rubric

From the Amendment Manager, select Amendment Actions > Create Official List
On the create amendment list dialog box, select Speaker’s Brief at Consideration Stage giving it a unique name e.g. SB - CS
The Speaker’s Brief will appear in a new tab in the Editor, containing all auto-populated text.
Update the pre-populated rubric e.g.—
1. concatenating the amendment numbers,
2. adding additional procedural notes or mutually exclusive notes in the Intro box
3. updating chairperson and/or minister names in the group boxes

Step 2: Insert spaces between paragraphs

Lawmaker hasn’t automated the spaces between paragraphs yet so you will need to manually insert them

Detailed steps to insert spaces between paragraphs

Insert space between paragraphs by using keyboard short-cut SHIFT+Enter
Leave the ‘Text’ element that is inserted empty and a space will be created in the PDF

Step 3: Add some options

Recreate the following option scenario—

Detailed steps to insert options

Place your cursor in the right-hand margin on the right-hand side of the proposer’s name (if you click on the proposer’s name, the ‘Update Member’ dialog box opens which is not required)
Use the right arrow on your keyboard to move the cursor through the elements working your way from Proposer in the breadcrumb:
to List body:
When your cursor is in the List body, click Enter to view the insert menu and select Options intro - amendment
Update the pre-populated text with the text in the screenshot above
With your cursor anywhere in the options intro text, click Enter again to view the insert menu and select Option start - red
Update the pre-populated text with the text in the screenshot above
Place your cursor at the end of AMENDMENT 2 - ALREADY DEBATED box and click Enter to view the insert menu and select Option end - red
Update the pre-populated text with the text in the screenshot above
With your cursor anywhere in the options intro text, click Enter again to view the insert menu and select Option start - blue
Update the pre-populated text with the text in the screenshot above
With your cursor anywhere in the option start text, click Enter again to view the insert menu and select Empty box
Update the heading placeholder element with AMENDMENT 2 - NOT CALLED and delete the subheading placeholder and type in the text according to the screenshot above
With your cursor inside the AMENDMENT 2 - NOT CALLED box, click Enter to view the insert menu and select Option end - blue
Update the pre-populated text with the text in the screenshot above

You can use SHIFT + Enter to insert blank lines between options if desired

✏️ Exercise 2: Export the Speaker’s Brief to Word

Once you’ve made the initial updates to the content of the Speaker’s Brief by adding in any extra content, the recommendation is to export the document to Word to do the remaining formatting. This formatting includes:

truncating any large amendments,
inserting page breaks to ensure boxes aren’t unnecessarily split across pages where possible, and
including more colours if there are more than 2 option

Export the Speaker’s Brief to Word

Detailed steps to export the Speaker's Brief to Word

When you have finished making updates, save and close the list using the Close Editor button
From the Official Lists tab, export the Speaker’s Brief to Word by selecting Actions > Export to Word and send the document for official checks.
Open the downloaded Speaker’s Brief in Word and make any necessary remaining changes

✏️ Exercise 3: Generate the Speaker’s Brief at Further Consideration Stage

You can generate a Further Consideration stage Speaker’s Brief to see how it differs from the Consideration stage version.

Generate a Speaker's Brief at Further Consideration Stage

From the Amendment Manager, select Amendment Actions > Create Official List
On the create amendment list dialog box, select Speaker’s Brief at Further Consideration Stage, giving it a unique name e.g. SB - FCS
The Speaker’s Brief will appear in a new tab in the Editor, containing all auto-populated text.

The Further Consideration Stage Speaker’s Brief will not include the 'Clause/Schedule/Long Title Stand Part boxes

The FCS Speaker’s Brief we created in this exercise includes a stand part motion, but that’s only because we included one in the training data. In real life, you would have a ‘leave out clause x’ amendment instead.

☑️ When complete…

Move onto Training Module: Preparing the Annotated Marshalled List