Archives Committee
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WEST GLAMORGAN ARCHIVE SERVICE NOTICE OF MEETING You are invited to attend a meeting of the WEST GLAMORGAN ARCHIVES COMMITTEE At: Committee Room 2, Civic Centre, Swansea On: Friday 15 June 2012. Time: 11.00 a.m. (Refreshments will be available from 10.45am) AGENDA 1. Election of Vice Chairmen. 2. Apologies for absence. 3. To receive Disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests from Members. 4. Terms of Reference. (For Information) 5. To receive and sign the Minutes of the West Glamorgan Archives Committee held on 9 March 2012 as a correct record. 6. To consider the Report of the County Archivist. 7. Date of Meeting’s for 2012/13 – All 11.00am September 14 - Neath December 14 - Swansea March 15 - Port Talbot Patrick Arran Head of Legal, Democratic Services & Procurement 8 June 2012 Contact: Gareth Borsden 01792 636824 Item No 4 Terms of Reference - West Glamorgan Archives Committee 1. To monitor the work of the Joint Archive Service as a provider of services to the City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, and its role within each authority. 2. To provide a forum where elected representative of both authorities can meet to discuss matters relating to the Archive Service, and where representatives of owners and users of Archives can become involved in, and make an advisory contribution to its work. 3. To approve the Joint Archive Service annual budget. 4. To meet quarterly to receive the report of the County Archivist on the provision of an archives and records management service to the authorities and to the public, and to approve future developments within the service. 5. To advise and make recommendations regarding the Archive Service publications programme. 6. To be informed on standards and matters relating to archive service provision in Wales and the UK generally, in order to assess the quality of service provision made by the West Glamorgan Archive Service. 7. To take the recommendations of the Joint Archives Committee back to the parent authorities for formal approval by the respective Executives. 8. To meet quarterly, meetings to be held alternately in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. Item No. 5 CITY AND COUNTY OF SWANSEA NEATH PORT TALBOT COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL MINUTES OF THE WEST GLAMORGAN ARCHIVES COMMITTEE HELD AT THE CIVIC CENTRE, PORT TALBOT ON FRIDAY, 9 MARCH 2012 AT 11.00 A.M. PRESENT: Mr D B Lewis (H M Lord Lieutenant) (Chair) presided Representatives of the City and County of Swansea: Councillor(s): Councillor(s): V A Bates Hughes J T Miles Representatives of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council: Councillor(s): Councillor(s): D W Davies J Rogers Representatives of the Associated Organisations: Canon S J Ryan - Diocese of Llandaff Officers: K Collis, D Michael, W John, J Sims and G Borsden. 42. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Apologies for absence were received from Councillors K E Marsh, R L Smith and W E Morgan and Venerable R Williams, Dr L Miskell and Mrs J Watkins. 43. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST In accordance with the Code of Conduct adopted by both Authorities, no interests were declared. 44. MINUTES The Minutes of the meeting held on 2nd December 2011 were agreed and signed by the Chair as a correct record. Minutes of the Meeting of the West Glamorgan Archives Committee (09.03.12) Cont’d 45. MATTERS ARISING The County Archivist indicated that the figures for “web hits” and group visits would be included in the next report. 46. REVENUE BUDGET 2012/13 Mr Kim Collis, County Archivist presented a summary of the details of the Joint Archive Service revenue budget for 2012/13. The associated staffing, service issues associated with the budget were outlined and discussed as well as the current level of reserves. AGREED that the revenue budget for 2012/13 be noted. 47. REPORT OF THE COUNTY ARCHIVIST Mr Kim Collis, County Archivist reported on the following matters. 48. SERVICE IMPROVEMENT The County Archivist reported on progress with regard to storage issues at the Guildhall. The improvement work ongoing at Neath Mechanics’ Institute was also detailed, as well as a recent problem at the property. He outlined recent successful CyMAL grant applications for the purchase of a document scanner, the creation of a portable exhibition about. Neath Abbey) and the development of educational resources for the recently-created exhibition on Jewish refugees in south Wales. He also referred to the £1527 grant from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust for the further conservation of Neath Abbey Ironworks plans. He reported that images of the parish registers of the Archdeaconry of Gower went online on 1 March on the website ‘Find My Past’, along with those of six of Wales’ historic counties. He outlined the potential positive and negative implications for the service of this development. An ongoing issue relating to the insurance of the archive collections was outlined and discussed in detail by the Committee. The Chair indicated he would write to the relevant officer in Swansea Council to secure progress on the matter, with a report back on the issue to the next meeting. Minutes of the Meeting of the West Glamorgan Archives Committee (09.03.12) Cont’d 49. SERVICE PERFORMANCE The County Archivist reported on the figures for usage of the service in the last three months and the factors affecting use of the service at each of the three service locations. 50. SERVICE OUTREACH The County Archivist reported on the continuing success of the Education Service.. He outlined the various projects, exhibitions and talks the service has been involved in during the quarter. 51. PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS AND PARTNERSHIP WORKING The County Archivist reported and detailed the various meetings and events attended by staff during the quarter. 52. ACCESSIONS OF ARCHIVES The County Archivist detailed the various accessions received by the service during the last quarter. The meeting ended at 12.07 p.m. CHAIRMAN S: West Glamorgan Archives Committee - 9 March 2012 (GB/HCR) 9 March 2012 Item No. 6 CITY AND COUNTY OF SWANSEA DINAS A SIR ABERTAWE AND NEATH PORT TALBOT COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL CYNGOR BWRDEISTREF SIROL CASTELL-NEDD PORT TALBOT Report of the County Archivist West Glamorgan Archives Committee 15 June 2012 The purpose of this report is to outline the work of the Archive Service during the period March to May 2012 1. Overview The usage statistics for the year 2011/12 are now available and are reported on in section 3. The result is mixed, but is on balance disappointing. Figures for the quarter are also to be found in this section and changes have been made to provide a broader view of our performance. The business plan for 2012-2014 has been completed and the action plan with performance indicators is attached to the report for information, which outlines how we intend to develop the work of the Service over the coming two years. Actions on some key parts of the business plan are already in motion and these are described in section 2. 2. Service improvement Appendix 1 contains two sections (8 and 9) of the Archive Service business plan 2012-2014 which concern the actions that we intend to carry out in the next two years and how we intend to measure our performance. The full document – which includes sections on environmental trends, a SWOT analysis and succession planning – has not been attached for reasons of size. he format of a business plan has been newly adopted to reflect the new approach adopted by the Swansea Council Culture and Tourism service unit in replacement of the previous format of an Annual Improvement Plan. Many of the actions in the business plan have been developed in response to the inspections by The National Archives (TNA) reported to the Committee previously, most notably the 2010 inspections of both the Swansea and Neath repositories. As members will note, selected new performance indicators developed as part of this business plan have also been adopted (see Section 3). Work on removing archives stored in Swansea Guildhall (see last quarter’s report) was completed approximately two weeks before the contractors took possession of that part of the building. This has been a significant effort by all the Archive staff to complete in advance of refurbishment work on this part of the Guildhall. The majority of the archives remain available to researchers, but some have had to be stored in accessible storage areas until building work finishes. A meeting was held in Neath Mechanics Institute on 1 May to discuss issues about the building as outlined in the March Committee. A sum of money has now been set aside by Neath Port Talbot Council for repairs and improvements to the fabric of the building. The primary actions to be undertaken are firstly the repair or replacement of the central heating boiler to restore its timer function and provide separate thermostatic controls for the storage and public areas; secondly an assessment of work required to remedy the ingress of damp to the internal walls; thirdly the erection of an external sign to indicate that this is a Neath Port Talbot Council facility and display the relevant opening hours. The Archive Service is taking part in an all-Wales project to start to tackle the issue of digital preservation in Welsh local authority and university archives. Work on this has commenced during the quarter with the installation of the chosen preservation software Archivematica, which has been developed by a consortium of interested public bodies in Canada. The archival preservation of electronic records is an increasing concern of repositories internationally and West Glamorgan Archive Service can only begin to tackle this issue as part of a partnership project.