Annual Report and Resource Accounts Accounts and Resource Report Annual 2004–2005 History all for The National Archives Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2004 –2005 Edinburgh EH3 9AZ ood booksellers ough g ders 020 7219 3866 Published by TSO (The Stationery Office) and available from: TSO (The Stationery Office) and available Published by Online www.tso.co.uk/bookshop Mail,Telephone, Fax & E-mail TSO 29,PO Box Norwich NR3 1GN enquiries 0870 600 5522 orders/General Telephone 0870 600 5533 Fax orders the Parliamentary through Hotline Lo-call 0845 7 023474 Order E-mail [email protected] 0870 240 3701 Textphone TSO Shops WC2B 6PQ 123 Kingsway, London 020 7242 6393 Fax 020 7242 6394 68-69 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AD 0121 236 9696 Fax 0121 236 9699 9-21 Princess Street, Manchester M60 8AS 0161 834 7201 Fax 0161 833 0634 Arthur Street,16 Belfast BT1 4GD 028 9023 8451 Fax 028 9023 5401 18-19 High Street, CF10 1PT Cardiff 029 2039 5548 Fax 029 2038 4347 71 Lothian Road, 0870 606 5566 Fax 0870 606 5588 The Parliamentary Bookshop 12 Bridge Street, Parliament Square, London SW1A 2JX enquiries 020 7219 3890 orders/General Telephone Fax or Agents TSO Accredited (see Yellow Pages) and thr LORD CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE The Second Annual Report and Resource Accounts on the work of The National Archives and the Second Report of the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives 2004–2005 Annual Report and Resource Accounts presented to Parliament by HM Treasury on behalf of the Lord Chancellor pursuant to section 1(3) of the Public Records Act 1958 and section 6(4) of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed on 18 July 2005 HC 317 LONDON: THE STATIONERY OFFICE £20.50 1 ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 About us Visit us at The National Archives Family Records Centre Ruskin Avenue 1 Myddelton Street Kew, Surrey Islington, London TW9 4DU EC1R 1UW Tel: 020 8876 3444 Tel: 020 8392 5300 Fax: 020 8878 8905 Fax: 020 8392 5307 Visit us online at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk 2 ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 Contents Chief Executive’s foreword 4 The appendices that accompany this report are available on The National Archives website at Vision and values 7 www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/operate/reports.htm Implementing Freedom of Information 9 Appendix 1: Summary of Records transmitted from various sources from April 2004 to March 2005 Advising government 14 Appendix 2: Exercise of delegated powers Improving access for the public 18 Appendix 3: Determination of status of bodies and their records Developing our online services 23 Providing information for 27 family historians A resource for academic and 31 professional historians Inspiring the historians of tomorrow 35 Reaching new audiences 38 Developing business opportunities 43 A resource for future generations 45 Supporting a wide community 49 of archive professionals Supporting our work 56 Performance against key Ministerial 60 targets and milestones Resource accounts 2004 –2005 65 Independent Complaints Reviewer to 99 The National Archives Annual Report 2004 –2005 Seeking a fair resolution Advisory Council on National Records 103 and Archives Second Annual Report 2004–2005 3 ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 Freedom of information The focus of much of our work this year was the Freedom of Information Act, which was fully implemented on 1 January 2005. Last year I wrote about our own plans for implementing Freedom of Information and also about the different ways we are supporting government departments, records managers and archivists across the country in their preparations to implement the Act. This year I am Chief Executive’s glad to report that although the start of Freedom of Information brought us an unexpectedly high foreword number of enquiries – well over 1,200 – we dealt with more than 99 per cent of them within the To the Right Honourable the Lord Falconer of required timescale, thereby proving in practice the rigour of our Thoroton, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain carefully planned new procedures. All this was on top of our normal work of providing information and I am pleased to present the Annual Report and services to our readers, to our Resource Accounts of The National Archives online users across the world, and to the media and the public in (the Public Record Office and the Historical general. Freedom of Information has Manuscripts Commission) for the financial required us to develop new systems and, perhaps more important, to year 2004–05. adopt new ways of working, and I would like to thank all the staff of The National Archives for their wholehearted co-operation. The nature of our holdings means that we are one of the government departments most involved in Freedom of Information. As well as implementing the Act as its affects historic records and reviewing closed records in consultation with the departments concerned, in January 2005 we released 50,000 records less than 30 years old, and provided online links to facilitate the widest possible public access. We were delighted to welcome Baroness Ashton to Kew to 4 ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 announce the opening of these files. time. To manage the increasing and Archives Council and archives A further 23,500 documents were numbers of digital records, we across the country, we continued to released before the end of the year. inaugurated this year our ‘seamless contribute to the Archive Awareness flow’ programme. This is designed to Campaign, which has been highly manage the semi-current records in successful in reaching new Records organisations and enable them to audiences. Its work was enhanced management and be transferred as automatically as by the popular TV series Who Do possible into the digital archive that You Think You Are?, many of whose the digital we established in 2004. Needless to 5 million-plus viewers started challenge say, the volume of our work on researching their own family history paper records has not diminished as in the archives. the number of digital records has Nearly half the major government grown, and thus we have to deal departments have now installed The National Archives’ e-newsletter with both simultaneously. electronic records management now has almost 100,000 systems to meet the needs of their subscribers, and by the end of the own particular businesses; most The National year the Access to Archives (A2A) others expect to have completed database had grown to over seven this work by the end of 2005–06. Advisory Service and a half million catalogue entries. This means that we are well on the With the help of the Heritage way to safeguarding and preserving We are continuing to establish The Lottery Fund, we have joined with the public record in whatever National Archives as an organisation communities to help them use the electronic form it takes and that that is responsive to needs of archives, often for the first time, in future access to our national history people, especially those who would innovative ways: from designing and through digital records is being not normally think about coming to building a globe based on our map assured. This very difficult challenge see us, and of the wider records and collections to participating in, and is shared by governments archival communities and their developing the content of, the worldwide, and we have not users. In order to provide the best award-winning Moving Here hesitated to seek advice from our possible advice and assistance to all programme about people who sister national archives those who look after records and came to England during the last 200 internationally and to work with archives or are thinking of doing so years (www.movinghere.org.uk). them to find solutions.We are at – nowadays many groups are the forefront of this endeavour, interested in archiving for With our partners, we remain alongside Australia, Canada, the themselves – we have brought determined to build the National USA and the Scandinavian nations. together the combined records Archives Network to benefit management expertise of the everyone and to tackle the backlog The advent of digital records has former Public Record Office and the of cataloguing in archives across the also required us to rethink some of Historical Manuscripts Commission country with a number of generous our advice to government into a new National Advisory funders. Much of what we do is for departments. This year we produced Service for archives. This calls upon clearly defined user groups: two very important policies our own resources, and those of government and the wider public designed to maintain the other bodies, to provide the best sector, schools, further and higher authenticity and reliability of digital advice, set standards and report on education, family historians, and records. The first was a draft the health of the nation’s archives many others. But we also need to custodial policy, the second a new and records management services. explain what archives are to a wider operational selection policy for audience in higher education and records, including digital ones. the research communities. To do Reaching new this we developed our strategic Once digital records have been audiences alliance with the School of selected for preservation, they have Advanced Study, University of to be delivered to us and then Together with the National Council London through a conference maintained over long periods of on Archives, the Museums Libraries entitled ‘Unleashing the Archives’. 5 ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005 This explored the relationship Family Records Centre; the very between archives and history, the successful improvement of our law and legal evidence, literature, public services and expertise; the conceptual art and record keeping enormous changes brought about from the ancient and modern by information and periods in western Europe.