ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2016-17 HC 117 Annual Report and Accounts of The National Archives 2016-17 including the Annual Report of the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives 2016-17 Annual Reports presented to Parliament pursuant to section 1(3) of the Public Records Act 1958 Accounts presented to the House of Commons pursuant to section 6(4) of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 Accounts presented to the House of Lords by Command of Her Majesty Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 18 July 2017 HC 117 This is part of a series of departmental publications which, along with the Main Estimates 2016-17 and the document Public Expenditure: Statistical Analyses 2016, present the Government’s outturn for 2016-17 and planned expenditure for 2017-18. © Crown copyright 2017 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. Any enquiries regarding this document should be sent to us at: The National Archives Kew Richmond Surrey TW9 4DU +44 (0) 20 8876 3444 nationalarchives.gov.uk You can download this publication from our website at nationalarchives.gov.uk Print ISBN: 9781474144391 Web ISBN: 9781474144407 Printed in the UK by Williams Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office ID: 02051709 07/17 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum Front cover image: Teenagers in Carnaby Street, 1969 Catalogue reference: INF 14/147 4 Annual Report and Accounts 2016-17 Contents 1. Performance report 6 1.1 Overview 6 Introduction 6 Who we are 8 Our audiences and the digital challenge 10 1.2 Performance analysis 30 Financial approach and results 30 Performance against our business priorities 32 Performance against our input indicators 42 Performance against our impact indicators 43 Environment and sustainability 44 2. Accountability report 45 2.1 Corporate governance report 45 Statement from the Lead Non-executive Board Member 45 Directors’ report 46 Statement of Accounting Officer’s responsibilities 50 Governance statement 51 2.2 Remuneration and staff report 61 2.3 Parliamentary accountability and audit report 75 Statement of Parliamentary Supply 75 Core financial tables 78 Audit certificate and report 80 3. Financial statements 82 Notes to the departmental resource accounts 86 Annex A Sustainability accounting and reporting 105 Annex B Advisory Council on National Records and Archives: 111 14th Annual Report 2016-17 Annex C Annual report of the Independent Complaints Reviewer 2016-17 119 5 1. Performance Report 1.1 Overview Introduction from the Chief Executive and Keeper To the Right Honourable Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport I am pleased to present the Annual Report and Accounts for The National Archives 2016-17. Two years ago, we published Archives Inspire, our audience-focused strategy, which sets out our priorities to meet the needs of our major audiences. During this time, expectations for greater government transparency, easier access to information, and finding solutions to forever preserve digital records have continued to rise. Meeting these demands has remained at the heart of our ambitions and those of the UK Government, and reaching this halfway point therefore comes at a critical time. The rise in the creation and use of digital technologies has profoundly changed how records are created, captured and shared. Digital is rapidly transforming the very nature of what it means to be an archive or a government body, and users’ needs continue to shift and grow. Extraordinary capabilities and the right infrastructure are required to keep pace. It is an issue that cannot be underestimated, nor can solutions be found in isolation. In March, we launched our new digital strategy, which outlines that nothing short of a revolution in digital archiving practice is required. Investment in the skills needed to secure the digital record is also of paramount importance. From its outset, Archives Inspire stated that we would need to think and organise ourselves differently in order to become a digital archive by instinct and design. Throughout 2016-17, we took stock of our own practices and capabilities, and started reshaping how we can better deliver our services. However, we recognise that there is still more to do. Changing the way we work will benefit our audiences. As trusted experts in managing, preserving and using information, our priority is to increase government departments’ compliance and capability in information management. The transition to the 20-year rule has accelerated the pace at which departments should be transferring their records for permanent preservation and they have amassed a significant legacy. Focused effort will be required if government is to meet its obligations. Our independent Information Management Assessment programme provides robust and effective solutions to better manage information, and helps departments develop their compliance and capability. Last year, we also worked with the Cabinet Office and the Government Digital Service on the Cross-Government Records Management Project to tackle the problem of government digital records. Together, with our combined advice and expertise, departments can get back on track. We are proud to lead and support a dynamic sector of 2,500 archives. Collectively, they form a unique ecosystem of collections and knowledge for all audiences to experience. Archives of all kinds face considerable resource and financial constraints; they are constantly seeking to reinvent themselves, to demonstrate their value to society, and to sustain their services, facilities and collections for the long-term. This can only be achieved by working in greater collaboration together with strong leadership. Following nationwide consultation with a wide 6 Annual Report and Accounts 2016-17 range of individuals, stakeholders and partners, we launched Archives Unlocked, a new, co-created strategic vision and action plan for archives in England. The vision outlines practical solutions to increase income generation, funding, and the development of essential skills and diversity across the sector. We know we need to create and support research. It is new knowledge that will allow us to address our digital challenges, and make innovative progress across a range of disciplines. We are part of discussions across the UK and beyond about the future of archival research – from our well-attended ‘Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities’ conference series run in partnership with Research Libraries UK, to making the case for archives on a global scale via international engagement. Our collaborative research projects are gaining recognition, for example, for the ground-breaking findings on Shakespeare’s will. However, we know that as The National Archives, we need to be leading the way in archival research. We commissioned research to find out the academic community’s views, and we learned that our reputation as an Independent Research Organisation and service provider is undoubted, but the profile of our academic research could be better. In starting to address this, we published an academic and research roadmap – a strategic and practical response to what the academic community told us. The roadmap sets out how we will reinvigorate our connections with individual academics, research bodies, funding councils and universities, so that we can learn from and partner with the best. We remain committed to changing the way audiences think about archives. Our public programming is starting to attract new audiences, and we are reimagining how people discover the stories held within our collection by using our public spaces in different ways. In the autumn, our popular ‘Archives at Night’ series saw several hundred people descend on Kew to immerse themselves in an interactive night of Victorian crime. In partnership with the National Trust, our ‘Queer City’ project combined archival records with heritage sites to showcase the stories of LGBT+ history, individuals and communities. We continue to lend our physical documents to institutions regionally and globally, and our online learning and community resources are engaging more and more young people and students. These activities highlight the many transformative steps we are taking to make our collections, and those of other archives, open to anyone, from anywhere. The future for archives is going to be challenging but exciting, and we are confident that we can grow by embracing the changes ahead, for future generations. I would like to thank everyone who has helped us in coming this far: our users, partners, volunteers, the Friends of The National Archives, and our brilliant staff. Jeff James Chief Executive and Keeper 10 July 2017 Performance report 7 Who we are The National Archives is a non-ministerial department and the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and for England and Wales. We work to bring together and secure the future of the public record, both digital and physical, for future generations. Our collection is accessible to anyone all over the world. We are many things to many audiences. Archives Inspire, our ambitious strategic plan, will see us think and organise ourselves differently to meet the needs of each of our major audiences, and to face our biggest challenge – digital. Tackling the complexities that digital technology presents is at the heart of our plans. Digital technology has changed forever what it means to be an archive, a government department, business or charity. It has changed how people tell their everyday stories, and how we forever preserve the records and information that make up our national collection. We are creating the online and digital capacity to meet each of our audiences’ needs, and to become a digital archive by instinct and design.