Quite recently retired lawyer here..


This I'm afraid is a result of the way lawyers are trained to draft documents (putting lots of definitions at the beginning of a document, then putting in an operative clause that simply uses that definition, which in isolation makes little sense and has no clarity). To be fair, it also reflects the way standard precedent documents are prepared, so that all the person actually producing the document needs to do is fill the gap in the definitions section.

The problem is this makes document very difficult to read and refer to easily. It's actually worse in some ways in an electronic copy, as you cannot flick back to the definitions section physically to find the answer.

My favorite example was a clause in a s106 planning agreement that said something along the lines of "The Owner shall pay the Bus Improvement Payments on the Bus Improvement Payment Dates and the Council shall use the Bus Improvement Payments for Bus Improvement Purposes".

Sadly, all too few of my colleagues appreciated how absolutely moronic this looks to the poor folk who have to read this, then go back (sometimes) many dozens of pages to read half a page of definitions just to find out that for the next five years they have to pay £500,000 on the 1st May to the local authority who have to use it to subsidise a new bus service serving the new development. 

 

I started looking for dates in the GWR one ... "duration of contract", and on page 16 ... can help feeling some of this is a bit obvious ... and didn't tell me what I wanted ...

 
An update on this topic from me:

There are many documents on that particular Gov.UK website, as recent as October 2024: they are far too numerous for me to even try to quote from them all, but please do have a look.

CfN. 

 
From the Department for Transport


Not sure what's updated except the header page though ...