The Directorate of Hansard and Audio Services is responsible for House Reports. It records and produces verbatim reports of House proceedings and proceedings of oversight/ watchdog committees of the National Assembly. On occasions, the services of the Hansard Directorate are sought out for the recording of proceedings of ad hoc committees, departmental committees, commissions of inquiries, conferences et cetera.

The Directorate is also the official archivist for the National Assembly in charge of custody of all Journals, Reports, Papers, Magazines and National Assembly proceedings. The duties and responsibilities of the Directorate include: -

• Responsible for coordination and production of the Hansard (Official Record of the National Assembly);
• Editing transcribed records, processing manuscripts, preparing accurate drafts;
• Maintaining a consistent and accurate Hansard publishing format;
• Maintaining an accurate database of Hansard publication;
• Development and maintenance of policies, rules, standards and procedures governing Hansard production;
• Maintaining links with Government Ministries/Departments, the public media, and other Commonwealth Editors’ Associations and Unions.

Leadership and Structure

The Directorate is headed by an experienced Director who is well versed in House procedures and systems and undertakes both its administrative and planning roles.

The Director supervises allocation of duties within and without Plenary and Committees, studies and implements trends of other Parliaments and develops plans to ensure the Directorate remains up to date, among other duties.

Departments: -   

• Plenary Services

Units:

1. Editorial and Reportorial Services
2. Merging, Repositories and Indexing
3. Archival and Retrieval

• Committee Services

Units:

1. Departmental Committees
2. Audit, Appropriations and other Select Committees
3. Editorial and Reportorial Services
4. Post-Production (with sub-units of: Merging, Repositories and Indexing, and Archival and Retrieval).

• Training and Development

Units:

1. Training
2. Staff Development

• Audio and Technical Services

Units:

1. Technical Services 
2. Audio Recording,
3. Documentation and Archiving Services 

• Publications and Information

Units:

1. Publishing
2. Hansard Research
3. Information and Manuals

• Translation and Interpretation

Units:

1. Translation
2. Interpretation and Language Services

• Research and Innovation

Units:

1.  Research and Manuals of the Hansard
2.  Innovation
3.  Wellness

Hansard Production

Members debates are recorded by audio officers and relayed to Hansard Reporters who transcribe them in real time, edited to remove the obvious mistakes and repetitions but without altering the meaning. The copy is published online within 48 hours and the paper version is made available later on as per demand.

Historic Hansard

Archived copies of the Hansard can be found on the parliament website here

More information about the role and activities of the Hansard can be found here