Life and Health Sciences Harvard Referencing Guidelines: Statutory Instruments

The required elements for the reference are:

Title including year. SI year/number. Place of publication: Publisher.

Note that for a UK regional / national assembly or parliament e.g. N. Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament there may be an overall UK number plus a local specific regional one. For N. Ireland Statutory Instruments the (N.I.) specific number is in brackets is after the primary SI.

Reference List

Example of the full reference at the end of your assignment:

Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Northern Ireland) Order 2003. SI 2003/417 (N.I. 4). London: The Stationery Office.

In-text citation

Give the title and year of the Statutory Instrument in italics in the text. 

Referring to the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Northern Ireland) Order 2003...

Points to note: 

• For Statutory Instruments, capital letters are used for all words except for words that are articles (e.g. a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (e.g. and, but, or, for, nor) and prepositions (e.g. on, at, to, by). Any ampersand symbols & are changed to the word and. 
   
• For equivalent enactment / commencement legislation from outside the UK add the name of the state, regional assembly or government. For other points in the reference follow the referencing information as given on the original document. So in the example below the text on the document has only the first word of the text in brackets with a capital letter.
  • Example:
    • Ireland. (2017) European Communities (Plastics and other materials) (Contact with food) Regulations 2017. SI 49 of 2017. Dublin: Oireachtas.
• Note that for legislation affecting Northern Ireland specifically there will be an overall UK SI number plus a N. Ireland (N.I.) specific number in brackets.
  • Example:
    • Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986. SI 1986/595 (N.I. 4). London: HMSO.