Presentation to the User Forum
Julia Stocken Head of Information
g
& Practice
Management
11th October 2012
Temporary roles for
20 year programme
Temporary roles for
“Accelerated review”
Improved guidance and training
• We provide training free of charge to all government departments
o Introduction to the Public Records System
o Appraisal
A
i l
o Cataloguing
• We are simplifying our guidance
o Records Collection Policy in plain English
o New improved web site
o http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/ourservices/selection-and-transfer
services/selection
and transfer.htm
htm
Destruction of records
• The National Archives is not empowered under the Public Records Act to
approve all destructions
• Departments are able at ‘first review’ to destroy records that are not of
continuing
g administrative value and not felt likely
y to be of historical value or
through retention and disposal schedules.
• When reviewing the remaining records for historical value, departments provide
The National Archives with information on which records they are recommending
for selection and those that are recommended for destruction. The National
Archives will either approve these recommendations or discuss further.
• As the method and timing of review changes to comply with the 20 year rule
and to ensure that digital records are handled appropriately, a likely benefit is that
Th National
The
N ti
l Archives
A hi
will
ill h
have a greater
t overview
i
off what
h t records
d ad
department
t
t
holds and an earlier view of those records recommended for selection or
destruction.
When departments review records
Advice on when departments should review records can be found in two of The
National Archives’ guidance documents, specifically.
• Appraisal Policy background paper on the ‘Grigg System’ and beyond.
h //
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/informationl h
k/d
/ f
management/background_appraisal.pdf
• Appraisal Policy (See particularly Appendices 1 and 3)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/informationmanagement/appraisal_policy.pdf
/
i l
li
df
We also cover this in the training that we provide to government departments on
appraisal and selection. Departments will of course have to make changes to
when they review records in order to meet the 20 Year rule and further
guidance on this will be provided in due course
course.
Guidance on records not of historical value
Records of purely administrative value to a department or that are duplicated or considered
to be ephemeral. Guidance on these types of records can be found in the following
documents:
Model retention/disposal schedules
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/projects-and-work/retentiondisposal-schedules.htm
General guidelines for the selection of records
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/generalguidelines pdf
guidelines.pdf
Generic OSPs (see those under ‘Generic Matters’)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/projects-and-work/ospsubject.htm
Records Decision Panel
• Consists of senior representatives of TNA departments – Information
Management & Practice (chair), Document Storage & Delivery, Advice &
Records Knowledge, Collection Care, Licensing, Research, Archives Sector
Development, Digital Preservation.
• Meets monthly, if there are papers to review
• Summary of discussion posted on the TNA web site
Records Decision Panel
• revisions and updates to the Acquisition and Disposition Strategy and the
Appraisal Policy
• Operational Selection Policies (new and substantially revised)
• Appraisal Reports (new and substantially revised)
• selection decisions which deviate from current policy
• collections where further advice is needed on whether to select
• termination of records series accrual and destruction of records under s.6
• deposit of records series to places of deposit under s.4(1) of the Public
Records Act which raise policy issues
• transfers of records from The National Archives to p
places of deposit
p
under
s.4(3) of the Public Records Act
• offers of non-public records of historical significance
• records
d in unusuall fformats that
h are llikely
k l to cause preservation issues, b
be
difficult to give access to or store, including electronic records
tp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/records-decision-panel.htm
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g
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p
Questions from the user forum
Royal Observer Corps service records
Records relating to the service of ROC personnel were presented by the MoD to the ROC
Museum Trust in 2011. We are also aware of a number of deposits relating to specific units
in local record offices noted on the National Register of Archives, and the Museum has
deposited its own collection of archival material with Hampshire Archives and Local
Studies. The catalogue is available on the HALS website.
http://calm.hants.gov.uk/DServe/DServe.exe?dsqIni=DserveE.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCm
d=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=6&dsqSearch=((text)='observer')
As far as we are aware the presented service records do not form part of the deposit at
HALS and remain with the Museum Trust at the Peninsula Barracks.
Records presented under s.3(6) cease to be public records and are no longer subject to the
Public Records Act; however, as a matter of policy TNA continues to take in interest in
records that have been presented and the institutions that receive them.
Questions from the user forum
Re-closure policy
The re-closure of records is undertaken in accordance with section 5(3) of the Public
Records Act. Applications to close material which was previously open go through the Lord
Chancellor’s Advisory Council on National Records and Archives in the same way as
material which is to be closed on transfer
transfer.
Information about the Council can be found on our web site
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/advisorycouncil/default.htm
PP 2 and PP 3
Can we provide any detail on what’s contained within these series? I’m awaiting a
response from one of my team who is investigating
Questions?
Any questions for the Information Management & Practice department should be
addressed to
Information.management@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk
We provide a helpdesk function and you can be sure you will get a response from a
member of the team