How to get alerts when a government web page changes
Guidance changes, rates go up, forms get replaced and consultations open and close. If your work or your plans depend on a government page, finding out late can cost you. The good news is that a lot of this can be watched for free. This guide covers GOV.UK's own alerts first, then the gaps they leave and how to fill them.
Start with GOV.UK's own email alerts
Many GOV.UK guidance and publication pages have a link near the top or bottom saying something like “Get emails about this page”. Follow it, confirm your email address, and GOV.UK will email you when the page is updated. It's free and comes straight from the source, so use it wherever you see it.
You can also sign up for emails about a whole topic or department rather than a single page. That's handy if you work in one area, such as farming, tax or education, and want to hear about anything new.
Read the change notes
Most GOV.UK publications show a “Last updated” date with a link to see all updates. Each entry is a short note from the publisher, such as “Updated the eligibility section” or “Added the 2027 form”.
These notes are a good first stop when you notice something has moved. They tell you roughly what changed and when, though they rarely show the exact wording before and after.
Use search pages and feeds for new publications
If you want to know when something new is published, rather than when an existing page changes, use GOV.UK's search and finder pages. Filter by topic, department or document type, and look for the options to get emails or subscribe to a feed for those results.
A feed reader will then show each new item as it appears. This works well for things like new consultations, statistics releases or guidance from one department.
Where the official alerts fall short
The official alerts are good, but there are a few gaps worth knowing about:
- Publishers can mark an edit as a minor change. Minor changes don't send emails, and you won't always agree about what counts as minor.
- Change notes summarise. If you need the exact sentence that was added or removed, you have to compare the versions yourself.
- Not every page offers alerts. Councils, regulators, the NHS, devolved governments and many public bodies run their own websites, each with its own approach, and some have none.
- Downloads such as PDF forms and spreadsheets can be swapped for a new version without much fanfare.
If any of those matter to you, add a second layer.
Fill the gaps with a page monitor
A website change monitor visits a page on a schedule, keeps a copy of each version and tells you when the text changes, whoever made the edit and however they labelled it. That covers minor changes, council pages and any public page without its own alerts.
A few good pages to watch:
- A guidance page your business follows, such as rules on a licence or a grant
- Your council's pages for planning, bins, parking or business rates
- A consultation page, so you know when it opens, closes and when the response is published
- Rate and threshold pages, such as the minimum wage or tax rates, if you budget around them
- A regulator's news or enforcement page in your industry
ChangeGist is one option for this. It sends a short plain-English summary of what changed, keeps the old and new text side by side, and lets you set a rule in your own words, like “only tell me if the deadline changes”.
Keep a dated record when the wording matters
If you rely on official guidance for a decision, it can be worth keeping a copy of what it said on the day. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine lets anyone save a public page, and a page monitor keeps its own dated history automatically.
This isn't legal advice, but a dated copy can help you explain later why you did what you did, if the guidance has since been rewritten.
A simple setup that covers most people
- Sign up for GOV.UK emails on the two or three pages you rely on most.
- Subscribe to a feed or topic emails for new publications in your area.
- Watch the pages that matter most with a page monitor, including council or regulator pages with no alerts of their own.
- Check slowly. Government pages rarely change more than a few times a week, so once or twice a day is plenty.
Comparing services? Read our side-by-side comparisons: Google Alerts alternative, Best website change monitors 2026.