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Society of Archivists, Scotland
Regional Meeting
At the Mitchell Library, Glasgow
Wednesday 2 December 2009, 14.30pm
Minutes
PRESENT
Juline Baird (Scottish Borders); Anne Cameron (Strathclyde University); Richard
Cullen (Dundee City); Alex Fitzgerald (Midlothian); Ruth Fyfe (East Lothian); Rachel
Hosker (Scottish Borders); Elaine Macgillivray (Glasgow City) Teresa Maley (Scottish
Borders); Mary McHugh (Archidiocese of Glasgow); Janice Miller (East
Dunbartonshire); David Powell (BACS); Ian Riches (National Trust for Scotland);
Lesley Richmond (GUAS); Kirsty Stewart (Edinburgh University); Helen Taylor
(Heriot Watt University)
APOLOGIES
Alan Borthwick (NAS); Caroline Brown (Dundee University); Siobhan Convery
(Aberdeen University); Caroline Cradock (Scottish Catholic Archives); Pam Cranston
(St Andrews University) Alison Cunningham (South Ayrshire); Alison Diamond (NAS);
Jo Dodd (North Lanarkshire); Philomena Doogan (Scottish Police Service); Andrew
Dowsey (Fife); Kay Foubister (Scottish Screen Archive); Margaret Fox (NAS); Anne
Grzybowski (Edinburgh University); Richard Hunter (Edinburgh City); Ann Jones
(Heriot Watt University); Jenny McDermott (NAS); John McLintock (NAS); Michelle
Miller; Laura Mitchell (NAS) Andrew Nicoll (Scottish Catholic Archives); Carol Parry
(RCPSG); Clare Paterson (Scottish Business Archive); Susan Patterson (RBS);
Frank Rankin (NHS Scotland); Elspeth Reid (Falkirk); Graham Roberts (Dumfries &
Galloway); Richard Sharp (Renfrewshire); Frances Shaw; Lydia Stirling (Highland);
Rona Van Niekirk (RPS Scotland); Fiona Watson (NHS Grampian) Vicki Wilkinson
(RBS)
SRM967
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
SRM968
MATTERS ARISING
SRM969
CHAIR’S STATEMENT
Since the last meeting of the Executive the Chair has been in contact with the Chairs
from Ireland and Wales and a joint response is being prepared about the sector
review. Similar issues and concerns have been raise by all three countries as to
communication, devolved matters, advocacy and structure. Again it is extremely
important we continue to encourage Scottish members to provide their views, ask
questions and challenge the review to ensure the process is robust.
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In November we had the joint training event with the Records Management Society in
Scotland on perceptions of the professions in our sector. It was a very successful
event with some inspiring and entertaining presentations and provided the
opportunity for members to meet colleagues in RM who may not be SoAS members.
The Chair has continued to be involved in the work of the SCA and discussion hosted
by the SCA and SCAN, working together and joint aims and objectives for Scotland.
Susan Graham (Edinburgh University and RMG) has been responding to requests for
comment on changes to legislation such as FOI on behalf of the Scottish Region and
will collate responses. Consultation has been sent around members. If you have not
received this let Juline know.
We have also received requests to help with and host training events for the
Education group and Registration Scheme in Scotland over the next year and
working with colleagues in these groups on content, dates and locations.
We are still without a training officer or someone with responsibility for committee for
the regions. If anyone would like to take on either of these roles or find out more
about them then please get in touch for a chat. Both are very rewarding roles that
provide plenty of CPD opportunities.
SRM970
SECRETARY’S BUSINESS
Since the last meeting in September the Secretary’s duties have included organising
the programme of meetings for next year. There has been interest from venues for 3
out of the 4 meetings subject to confirmation of dates.
On 16 November the Secretary attended the Regional Officers Training Day in
Dublin. Laura Cotton, new chair of CfR gave an overview of sector review
developments in the absence of John Chambers. Voting has been scheduled for
April next year developments. The changing structure of Council (from committees to
portfolio based) was also mentioned at this meeting. Further points made were that
as a result of the communications survey the Society website shall undergo a revamp
and that there would be a move towards a centralised training programme (following
the success of the digital preservation roadshows). Regional training however will
still be encouraged.
The rest of the day looked at 3 areas regional meetings, training needs and role
specific sessions.



The regional meetings session looked at frequency of meetings and also the
procedures for meetings and the AGM
Training session highlighted the work of the Training Officers Sub-Committee
and asked for suggestions for centralised training programmes
Role specific session involved discussion with other Secretaries about the
roles and responsibilities.
SRM971
SOAS BUDGET
SoAS has spent £1597 of the 2009 budget (as of end October) – see appendix for
figures. The 2010 budget proposal has been submitted to the office.
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Expense claims for the Regional Officers Training Day & the joint event with RMS are
outstanding.
SRM972
COMMITTEE FOR THE REGIONS REPORT
The Committee for the Regions post is currently vacant.
SRM973
COUNCILLOR’S REPORT
SoAS are still looking for a council representative to report.
SRM974
TRAINING COMMITTEE REPORT
Post vacant. See Chair’s report.
SRM975
PUBLICITY OFFICER REPORT
The Publicity Officer has been maintaining and editing the blog. There have been a
steady flow of blog postings, 8 in around 6 months. The Officer contacted Rebecca
Penneck at the SCA to discuss collaboration on stories, actions, and blog postings the possibility of some cooperation in 2010 was mooted subject to further
correspondence. The Officer plans to investigate what kinds of publicity would
support members, concentrating on our remit of archivists rather than the SCA focus
upon archives.
The Chair encouraged members to feed through any suggestions for publicity
initiatives.
SRM976
CAREERS OFFICER REPORT
The careers profile survey report has now been posted on the blog and on the SoA
Scotland regional page of the SoA website. A summary of the results are that records
management roles typically required more on the job experience and commanded a
higher salary, whereas archives roles were more often filled by staff earning in the
lowest pay scale. The variations of salary scales in the local authority, higher
education and business sectors showed that roles in universities and businesses
were generally better paid than those in local authorities. There was not enough data
from the survey to allow for meaningful analysis of pay banding and experience
levels within the sectors. The questionnaire addressed job vacancies advertised in
the last 12 months, finding that these were evenly split between those which required
a professional qualification in archives and records management and those that did
not.
Please could anyone who would be interested in being in involved in an event in
central Scotland next Spring for record-keeping career choosers to give them
information from advisers, practitioners, the societies (RMS and SoA) and the
university courses get in touch with the careers officer to express their interest.
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The careers officer's name has changed to Susan Patterson and her work email
address is now Susan.Patterson@rbs.co.uk
SRM977
ASLAWG REPORT
During the period since the last report there have been a variety of meetings and
consultation affecting local authorities ranging from the development of a new
National Strategy for Business Archives, to a discussion on the SCAN project.
Additionally the continued discussions on proper arrangement guidance and the
potential links to the Culture bill are being considered in conversation with NAS. The
RMS development of a generic retention schedule was also noted with interest.
ASLAWG is staying abreast of all these developments through its members.
ASLAWG are investigating the possibility of establishing its own jiscmail (or similar)
based distribution list/discussion board, to facilitate discussion and communication.
Due to the ill health of the designated officer ASLAWG did not respond to the recent
FOI(S)A consultation on the reduction of closure periods.
ASLAWG is awaiting the advertisement of the vacant archivists’ posts in South
Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire.
SRM978
SCA REPORT
The Scottish Council on Archives is meeting the day after the SOAS meeting.
Various projects are still underway. Consultation is taking place with archivists and
users about a future extension of the SCAN catalogue. Work is also being done on
the quality frameworks project.
It was noted in the meeting that the NCA would be attending the meeting.
(A report of the 3 Dec meeting is included in the appendix)
SRM979
AOCB
Sector Review
A member present raised the question of the Sector Review and how other members
felt about the process. Several points arose from this discussion these were as
follows:
Communication needs to be improved. Members are not clear about what they are
voting on and feel that the documentation produced (i.e. the updates) needs to be
clearer and use plain language that can be easily understood. Some felt a list of pros
and cons should be made available.
There were also concerns about the inclusion of users of archives in the
membership. One was whether this would change the role of the Society from a
professional body to an interest group. A counter viewpoint however was that users
understanding of archives could be enhanced.
Other points raised were that again the Society was focusing on the English regions.
Scotland (and also Wales/Ireland) were being treated as regions whereas they are
national regions with devolved political administrations making their situations
different. The Secretary confirmed at the CfR training that reference had been made
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to the role of the regions being enhanced – but the context given for this at this time
was the role of English regional archive councils.
Changes at TNA
The Chair briefly informed members of policy developments at The National
Archives. The plan is to create regional ‘archive supercentres’ rather than local
centres. There will also be more generic roles created.
SRM980
DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
March 2010 Dundee (Exact date TBC)
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Appendix 1 - Budget
Society of Archivists
Income & Expenditure Budget &
Actual
Scottish Region
Sub
Code
05
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1st January 2009 to 31st October 2009
Code:
6070
Total
Budget:
2950
Budget
Travel
Accommodation
Meals & Refreshments
Telephone
Photocopying
Printing & Stationery
Room Hire
Postage
Other
2,950
Actual
797
593
57
26
0
0
124
0
0
1,597
Society of Archivists Registered Charity no: 1041063; Registered Company no: 2969472
%
54%
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Appendix 2 – Report from SCA meeting 3 Dec 09
The Scottish Council on Archives met on 3 December 2009.
Geoff Pick from the National Council on Archives spoke about the proposed merger
between NCA, SOA and ACALG. The meeting has been summarised by Lesley
Richmond on the Scotarch list.
Michael Moss and Frank Mason, two non-executive directors of the National Archives
of Scotland, then spoke about their role in NAS. They focussed mainly on the
financial cuts that will have to me made across central and local government in the
next financial year and the impact that this might have on the archive sector.
During the meeting proper the following was discussed:
Public records review - uncertainty as to what was happening with this as a report
from the Keeper had been expected.
Projects 1) Quality Framework. The consultant has produced a very full draft document. There
will be extensive consultation on this. Gordon Reid is due to circulate it to the archive
community and set up focus groups etc to discuss it. Basically it has identified core
outcomes for archive and records management services and has suggested ways to
determine if these outcomes have been reached. Although a lot more complex than
that.
2) Archives Matter brochure. This is to be a publication setting out why archives
matter and is to be launched in March
3) Catalogues online. Consultation has taken place with archivists and users. Next
stage is to ask potential providers of a product to demonstrate what they can provide.
4) Generic retention schedules. Consultants have been appointed to develop these
and consultation will take place.
5) Sound Archives. A paper was put to the minister who was fairly favourable but the
minister has now changed. The National Library of Scotland now has the lead on
this.
Other issues discussed included potential threat to Moray heritage / archive
provision, situation in other local authorities eg Strathclyde.
The SCA itself is looking at what it is and how it is structured. It is likely that next year
there will be changes in this.
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