CITIZEN ADVICE NOTES (CANS)
ENGLISH, WELSH AND SCOTTISH LEGISLATION EXPLAINED.
COVERAGE
CANS is a detailed summary of the laws of England, Wales and Scotland, written in plain
English. It is compiled from the original Parliament sources - statutes and statutory
instruments and also Codes of Practice and relevant European Directives. It is updated
weekly. The following subjects are covered:
Administration of justice
Business
Charities
Consumer protection
Discrimination
Education
Employment
Environmental law
Family
Health and welfare
Housing
Immigration
Individual rights & registration
Local government
Nationality
Social security
Tax and finance
Town & country planning
Transport
Other legislation
STARTING
Search on iFind, the library catalogue http://ifind.swan.ac.uk for CANS and click on the
link to take you to the database OR select from the A-Z list of databases & web sites from
iFind Research http://ifindresearch.swan.ac.uk
You will need to log in with your Swansea University username and password.
SEARCHING & BROWSING
Browsing
1. Twenty sections are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen and the full text can
be viewed by simply clicking on a section heading, then sub-section headings until the
user arrives at the chosen text. There are plenty of cross-references to guide the user
to alternative useful sections.
2. Alternatively, the user can access information through the A-Z Index (link is on the
bottom right-hand corner of the home page).
Key
Legislation of England
Legislation of Wales
Legislation of Scotland
BB CC – Institution Content/LibraryISSResources/Database Guides
9/2015
Searching
The Site Search tab is located on the top right-hand side of the screen. The user can enter a
word or phase and also limit the search to particular sector of legislation, e.g. Family,
Employment. Similarly the search can be limited to a devolved legislative area (England,
Scotland or Wales) or leave the search to the default of "All legislation".
Basic searching: enter one or more words, e.g. accidents insurance will find paragraphs
which contain both words within the same paragraph.
Phrase searching: Use quotation marks to surround a particular phrase, e.g. “housing
benefit”, this will ensure the two words are found together as a phrase.
Truncation: Use an asterisk (*) to truncate your search terms, e.g. hous* will find house,
houses, housing, households, etc. Please note that you can not truncate a search term within
quotation marks.
NB. Please do not use apostrophes or symbols in your search term (i.e. %, !, ?, £, &).
These characters are not recognized by the CANS search engine.
PRINTING
If the chapter you are reading is displayed on more than one web page, then click on View
full article, then Print. This will ensure your document is printed in one continuous sequence
with no wasted space or unnecessary graphics or logos.
There is no facility for emailing or saving a document except by copy/paste into Word or
Outlook.
HELP
Use the Help tab or if you need any further help using this database, please contact your
Subject Librarian or ask at the Library Desk.
BB CC – Institution Content/LibraryISSResources/Database Guides
9/2015