ADVISORY COUNCIL ON
NATIONAL RECORDS AND ARCHIVES
Date:
Time:
Chair:
12 November 2015
11:00 - 17:00
Venue: The Royal Courts of Justice
The Master of the Rolls (Items 1- 5)
Professor Arthur Lucas (Items 6 –15)
Minutes: Beth Watson - Advisory Council Secretariat
Members: Ms Hillary Bauer
Professor Rodney Brazier
Mr John Collins
Mr John Evans
Ms Sarah Fahy
Ms Lesley Ferguson
Dr Bendor Grosvenor
Mr Stephen Hawker
Mr Graeme Herd
Dr Elizabeth Lomas
Mr John Millen
Dr William Peace
Sir John Ramsden
Non-members:
Mr Michael Smyth
Mr Trevor Woolley
Mr Jeff James, Chief Executive, The National Archives
Ms Carol Tullo, Director, Information Policy and Services, The National Archives
Mr Ian Cross, Head of Government Transfer and Access, The National Archives
Ms Helen Potter, Head of the FOI Centre, The National Archives
Ms Victoria Davis, Access at Transfer Manager, The National Archives
Mr Sam W haley, Head of the Chief Executive’s Office, The National Archives
Ms Trish Humphries, Secretary to the Forum on Historical Manuscripts and
Research
Mr Peter Farr, Private Secretary to the Master of the Rolls
1. Welcome, apologies and introductions
1.1 There were no apologies.
1.2 . The Master of the Rolls welcomed Ian Cross and Helen Potter to their first meeting in their new roles.
1.3 He also thanked Graeme Herd and Arthur Lucas, for whom this would be their last meeting, for their commitment and hard work on behalf of the Advisory Council over the last ten years.
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2. Machinery of Government Changes
2.1. Mr James explained the impact of the Machinery of Government changes announced on 17
September which saw sponsorship of The National Archives and the Information Commissioner’s
Office move from the Ministry of Justice to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Responsibility for records management policy had moved to the Cabinet Office.
2.2. The Transfer of Functions Order had been submitt ed for the Privy Council’s consideration on 11
November. It was expected that the proposals would be accepted and that the Order would come into effect on 9 December. The National Archives had been working closely with Ministers’ private offices to ensure that the transfer was smooth and that they were aware that there were a number of submissions which would need to go before Ministers quickly as it had been impossible to progress these in the interim.
3. Scrutiny of the Advisory Council’s advice and decisions
3.1. Lord Dyson noted that the public records system was coming under increased scrutiny and that the volume of work undertaken by the Council continued to grow. It was now two years since the
Council’s triennial review and he thought that it would be beneficial to undertake a new review to examine whether the Advisory Council ways of working were still effective and if there was scope for it to be more transparent. Members agreed.
3.2 Mr James said that he would investigate the options for commissioning such a review and to report back to members.
3.3. Professor Lucas suggested that, in addition to any review, there could be scope for The National
Archives, with support from the Advisory Council, to engage more with users and stakeholders to explain how the public records system operates. This could be through seminars or other events which would allow people to raise questions about how decisions are made regarding selection and access.
4. Cabinet Office
4.1. The Advisory Council considered letter from the Cabinet Office confirming that it had completed a thorough review of series of records it had been discussing with the Council over the last year. The
Council asked that the department submit a standard closure aaplication, setting out clearly under which exemptions they were asking for closure, which would be considered at the next meeting.
5. Digital Transfer Working Group
5.1. Mr Hawker introduced a paper setting out the work undertaken by the digital transfer working group since the Advisory Council last met and seeking the Council’s approval for the draft terms of reference. He explained that the working group was looking at the risks that digital brings, and how these and the processes for handling digital material will differ from those of paper records.
5.2. He explained that the Advisory Council will need to work differently but that there will not be a sudden switch. The volume of born-digital records will increase over the coming years and digital material will need to be considered alongside paper records for some time. It has also become clear that the majority of early born-digital records are structured in a way that closely mirrors paper records. It is likely that the number of formal documents will not alter significantly. Dr Lomas stressed importance of having robust selection policies in place to counter any suggestion that the difficulties posed by it were being used to disguise the destruction of important records.
5.3. Members expressed an interest in seeing any process maps that set out the current selection and transfer process, and any which may be produced to cover born-digital material.
5.4 The Advisory Council was content to agree the proposed terms of reference for the working group.
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6. NHS Retention Instrument
6.1. Professor Lucas welcomed representatives from the Department of Health and The National
Archives to the meeting.
6.2. They explained that there was a disconnect between the requirements of the 20-year rule and the need for the NHS to retain personnel and patient records for a longer period. Therefore they were seeking a retention instrument similar to that already covering civil service personnel files.
6.3. The Advisory Council agreed to recommend to the Secretary of State that the retention instrument covering NHS records be approved.
7. Minutes and Matters Arising
7.1. The minutes of the meeting of 16 July were agreed as an accurate record subject to the inclusion of a statement in paragraph 3 to indicate the final outcome of the Council’s deliberations, and two other typographical amendments.
7.2. The Council was updated on the action points from the previous meeting.
7.3. Members asked that in future the minutes of the meetings be circulated as soon as possible and that they should include a list of action points. The secretary should also create an action log to be circulated to members with meeting papers to ensure that they could track progress and outstanding actions.
7.4. Members were updated on queries raised at the previous meetings relating to applications for public records designated as closed or retained.
8. Department for Culture, Media and Sport
8.1. Professor Lucas then welcomed a representative from DCMS to the meeting.
8.2. He said that the department was working hard to undertake the thematic review of its records. He expected the review to take around 12 to 18 months, with support being provided by DCLG, and he was confident that the shared services model would work well.
8.3 The Advisory Council agreed to recommend to the Secretary of State that DCMS be permitted to retain its legacy records for a further 12 months but asked that the department return to its July 2016 meeting to report on the progress of their review
9. Atomic Weapons Establishment
9.1. The Advisory Council considered the paper submitted by the Atomic Weapons Establishment
(AWE) requesting permission to retain records, which had previously been held by The National
Archives, under retention criteria 6. The Advisory Council agreed to recommend to the Secretary of
State that the retention request be approved.
10. Foreign and Commonwealth Office
10.1. Professor Lucas welcomed representatives from the FCO to the meeting. They gave an update on the pilot programme to review their legacy files and their ongoing work on annual releases.
10.2.
The Advisory Council was content to recommend that the FCO’s request to retain a number of files be agreed and they would recommend to the Secretary of State that the retention request be approved. It asked that the FCO provide an update on progress in July 2016.
11. Forum on Historical Manuscripts and Academic Research update
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11.1. Dr Lomas said that the minutes of the most recent Forum meeting would be circulated shortly and members were welcome to email her with any questions they had about them.
11.2. At the meeting the Forum had discussed:

A paper on science archives

The proposed exhibition to celebrate the 150 th
Anniversary of the Historical Manuscripts
Commission. This was now being reframed as a celebration of archives more generally, and
Mr James explained that work had been paused on it until the success of The National
Archives’ first partnership exhibition in 2016 could be assessed and lessons learned from it.
 Discovery, The National Archives’ catalogue. Some academics had expressed concerns about the new catalogue and the Forum was keen to engage in a dialogue with The National
Archives to address this. Dr Mortimer was taking this forward.

The new structure and strategy for The National Archives’ Research and Collections, including the appointment of a new Head at Director level.
11.3. Dr Lomas confirmed that the flow of acceptance in lieu applications had remained steady.
11.4. Registrations as places of deposit remained good and this was helping to improve standards in local council archives.
12. FOI Panel Update
12.1 Ms Potter introduced the FOI Panel update and explained the improvements that were being made to the quality checking carried out by her team.
13. Records designated as closed – September 2015
13.1. On 9 September 2015, a schedule of closure applications received from departments was circulated to members. Members were asked to raise any queries within 10 days. Any applications that were not queried were considered to be agreed; all those that were queried were carried over for consideration at this meeting.
13.2. Ms Davis provided the responses given by departments in answer to the queries. Where members remained unhappy with the response, the applications were carried forward. All other applications were approved. The Advisory Council agreed that it would be helpful to have any responses in advance of a meeting if the exercise was carried out again in future.
14. Access to records
14.1 Applications for retention – 12 November 2015
The Advisory Council considered the applications for the retention of records. All those not subject to query were approved.
14.2 Applications for closure – 12 November 2015
Due to lack of time, it was agreed that a short meeting would be convened in December to consider the applications for closure.
14.3. There was a short discussion on alternative ways of working which would ensure that the
Advisory Council had sufficient time to consider closure and retention applications. Suggestions included:
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
One or more additional meetings each year to focus on the consideration of schedules.

The consideration of a September schedule remotely as in the recent pilot.
15. Any Other Business
15.1. Mr James updated the Advisory Council on the work that The National Archives’ ICT team in improving remote working options for staff.
15.2. Members discussed the remit of the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information. Mr
James said that he had been invited to meet the Chairman of the Commission, Lord Burns, to discuss the operational burden FOI placed on departments. The Advisory Council agreed that it would not be necessary for it to submit evidence as the focus of the Commission was the impact that the FOIA had on the concept of a “safe space” for policy development and implementation and frank advice; this did not touch on the Counci l’s focus on the application of the Act to historical records.
15.3. Date of Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Advisory Council will be held on 11 February 2016. Location: The
National Archives, Kew.
There being no further business, the meeting was closed.
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