Memorandum submitted by the Archives Policy
Advisory Group (APAG) of the South East Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council (SEMLAC)
OUR ROLE
AND PURPOSE
The APAG's role is to offer strategic advice
to the Board of SEMLAC, one of the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council's (MLA), regional agencies in England. Our group represents
the interests of all parts of the archives domain in the South
East. Our purpose is to:
— Provide the lead regional "voice"
for archives—within the region and at national level.
— Provide an overview of regional development
issues for archives in the South East.
— Advise on the development of regional
development strategies for archives, and other relevant strategic
and policy issues.
— Advise on and facilitate effective
regional domain-specific collaboration and partnership working.
— Advise SEMLAC on the development
of cross-domain working in the South East.
OUR RESPONSE
We fully endorse the response made to the Committee
by the MLA Partnership but would offer the following, additional
comments relevant to the representation of archives at Government
level.
ROLE AND
EFFECTIVENESS OF
DCMS
Responsibilities for archives and records management
have been historically split across Government and are now shared
principally between the Department for Constitutional Affairs,
of which The National Archives is an executive agency, the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minster and DCMS, although DCMS interest has
only been formally acknowledged since the creation of Resource,
now MLA in 2000, and the devolved administrations.
It is our view that this split of responsibilities
has hampered the ability of archives to advocate to Government
departments and, in turn, have their interests and contribution
to the quality of life recognised and effectively advocated more
broadly to other Government Departments. This remains the case
despite fact that there has been a coordinating body for archive
policy across Government—The Interdepartmental Archives
Committee since the mid 1990s.
Although the work of MLA and its agencies has
helped to raise the profile of archives within DCMS both at the
level of officials and Ministers, we would maintain that the Department
does not represent the interests of archives with the same degree
of understanding and application as its does for museums and libraries.
We appreciate that there are historic reasons for this:—prior
to 2000, there were no regional development structures for archives
for DCMS to engage with; The National Archives led policy development;
and DCMS has not directly held sponsorship responsibility for
any archive bodies as it has for the national museums and the
British Library.
We had hoped that DCMS would demonstrate parity
of support by offering financial support to the recommendations
of MLA's Archives Task Force (2003), as it has done for Renaissance
in the Regions (museums) and Framework for the Future (libraries).
Despite the fact that this report represented a UK-wide consensus
view of the development needs of archives, that support was not
forthcoming. We fear that, as an inevitable consequence, MLA will
concentrate its efforts where DCMS instructs it through its funding
priorities and that archives will take a back seat in it policy
and operational plans.
AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES
We would like to take this opportunity to highlight
to the Committee the predicament of the regional audio-visual
archives. The position in which they find themselves illustrates
some of the issues of lack of coordination and leadership by DCMS.
The regional audiovisual archives receive some funding from the
UK Film Council through their regional screen agencies and fund
the remainder of their activities through other grant support,
which is usually short term in nature. This unsustainable position
has now been brought to a head and many of the archives face serious
financial difficulties. They have been in discussion with the
Film Council for over two years to try and find an effective solution
but it has only been the last few months, with some lobbying of
DCMS on the matter that the British Film Institute (BFI) has taken
over policy responsibility from the UK Film Council. The BFI has
presented a national strategy paper to James Purnell, with the
expectation of securing additional financial support from DCMS
to stabilise the regional audiovisual archives. Although no formal
response has yet been received we understand that the response
is likely to be sympathetic but provide no financial reassurance.
SEMLAC has made significant strides in developing
a partnership with Screen South (the South East arm of the UK
Film Council) and SEEDA our regional development agency to help
support the commercial development of our regional audiovisual
archives, but we fear that its efforts at regional level are being
hampered by a lack of leadership and coordination at the national
policy level.
PRIORITIES FOR
FORTHCOMING HERITAGE
WHITE PAPER
Legislation
The existing legislative framework for archives
and records management remains notoriously weak, despite the fact
that relatively recent and welcome legislation, such as the Freedom
of Information Act, is offering the public much clearer rights
of access to evidence maintained on its behalf. The National Archives
has been developing proposals for new archival and records management
legislation with cross-Government approval, which now appear stalled
at the stage of detailing the resource implications.
Securing the legislation would be a vital step
in ensuring that national bodies and local government protect
and preserve the records of our national memory in a manner consistent
with providing high quality public access. This is far from the
case at present.
We hope that the Heritage White Paper will refer
to, and support the case for proposed new primary legislation
for archives and records management.
PRESERVATION AND
ACCESS TO
ELECTRONIC RECORDS
We would urge the Committee to encourage DCMS
to give priority within the scope of the Heritage White Paper,
to proposals for ensuring the preservation and access to electronic
records, which are partly dealt with by The National Archives
proposed legislation. Our focus must be on records that are "born
digital" and exist in no other format eg emails rather than,
for example, digitisation of existing heritage assets. The key
issue here is that our electronic national memory is in danger
of disappearing and that archival collections will become moribund
and not reflect contemporary life. For example, in the South East,
only one of the 12 local authorities has a system for preserving
and making electronic records of it own authority accessible.
None is able to select and preserve the electronic records of
external depositors.
This issue has been highlighted by a number
of bodies in recent years including MLA, The National Archives,
The British Library and The Digital Preservation Coalition, but
national and local political support has not been sufficient to
effect the needed change. We hope that the Heritage White Paper
may go some way to redressing this.
19 January 2006
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