Memorandum submitted by the North West
Regional Archives Council
INTRODUCTION
The North West Regional Archives Council (NWRAC)
is the representative body involving archive service providers
and users from academic, family and local history communities
in the NW region. As may be expected our comments will relate
primarily to the position of the archive sector in our region.
The organisations involved in NWRAC are detailed in the attached
appendix, and all have been involved since the formation of the
body in 2000, under the aegis of the National Council on Archives.
Since the establishment of the NW Museums Libraries and Archives
Council in 2002, we have sought to work closely with that body
to support and develop archives provision and access to all potential
users. Unlike some other English regions, in the NW the Regional
Archives council has remained totally independent from the regional
MLA body, which has exacerbated our lack of resources, but has
allowed us to speak distinctly on behalf of the archive sector.
This has been at times a source of tension with the regional MLA,
but the relationship will be discussed in more detail below.
We are giving evidence to this inquiry as we
feel it important that the regional voice is heard, and we hope
that other RACs will also make submissions, and that these will
echo our concerns. We do feel that many of these concerns may
be seen in particularly stark relief in the North West. We believe
it is important that the heritage value of archives as part of
the national resource is recognised, but would urge that the Committee
also recognise their informational importance for our society,
which extends far beyond the heritage sector, supporting individuals,
families and businesses in their everyday activities. Also it
must be stressed that archival collection and preservation are
activities to be carried out in perpetuity, as free as possible
from the vagaries of fashion and short term policy making.
This submission has been specifically prepared
for this inquiry.
FUNDING
The archive sector in the NW is large yet diverse
and, probably as a result of this, even less well resourced than
in many other regions. A useful source of information in this
context is the Archive Service Statistics produced by the Institute
of Public Finance and Accountancy in conjunction with the Public
Services Quality Group of the National Council on Archives. Although
the statistics relate only to local government archives they do
allow useful comparison between regions of mainland Britain.
The NW houses a broad range of archive services—local
authorities, universities, private and religious archives and
several business archives, usually of a national character. There
are probably more of the last group in our region than any where
else in England apart from London and the South East. Due to the
major local government re-organisation of 1974, a patchwork of
small, sometimes very poorly resourced services developed in the
metropolitan boroughs, while the shire counties of Cheshire and
Lancashire were left to house the records of the former administrations
with funding based on drastically reduced geographical boundaries.
Cumbria, as a newly created county, had to deal with the problem
of establishing a network of service delivery in a geographically
vast, culturally diverse and sparsely populated environment. The
subsequent re-organisations of 1986 resulted in further fragmentation
of services in metropolitan areas with complex but inadequate
financial arrangements to keep some county-wide elements operating
on a fragile basis.
Although the creation of unitary authorities
in areas of both Lancashire and Cheshire in the mid-1990s resulted
in the creation of voluntary joint arrangements rather than further
fragmentation, it must be acknowledged that their financial basis
is fragile and makes service development especially difficult,
as several authorities must always agree before any increase in
funding is forthcoming. All local authorities in the region have
been subject to stringent financial regimes for many years, and
the general experience is that the non-statutory nature of archive
services has made it particularly difficult even to protect existing
levels of funding, let alone develop services.
The small size of many of the services compounds
the problem, as many of these authorities operate archives services
within library or museum services, which are themselves in difficulties
with resources. In many cases the archives capacity does appear
particularly "squeezed". On a very practical level,
the small size of services means that many have no access to specialist
skills, either in-house or bought-in. The lack of conservation
capacity and resources is particularly worrying in this respect,
as this is a fundamental core activity, without which attempts
to preserve archives are meaningless in anything other than the
short term
The region also houses many non-local authority
services. Within universities the position is variable, but overall
there has been some noticeable growth over recent years. Positive
developments include the appointment of an archivist at the University
of Salford, and the transfer of the staff of the NW Film Archive
onto the permanent staffing establishment of Manchester Metropolitan
University. A new relationship between the University of Central
Lancashire, and the People's History Museum in Manchester, which
includes the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, will hopefully
provide more stable future funding for the Museum and Archive.
However the history of this Museum and Archive does illustrate
the problems faced in securing resources for special collections
in universities.
Business archives are well represented within
the region and are often the national repository for their company.
Some, such as Unilever, are well supported by their parent company,
while others have experienced major decline. Both the Pilkington
archive (a national leader in the 1960's) and the National Gas
Archive are now only accessible on a part time basis through the
activities of volunteers. In the case of the National Gas Archive
this occurred after major investment to develop bespoke specialist
accommodation and the transfer of material out of local authority
repositories at the insistence of the gas industry. Other major
collections, such as that of United Utilities, are without any
provision being made by the owners for either preservation or
access. Even if such collections were to be offered to public
archives, there is very limited capacity to accept them, as the
region has only 370 cubic metres (370m3) of vacant archive accommodation,
with many services having no spare space whatsoever. Although
there are several regions with even less spare capacity, it poses
particular problems in the North West, in view of the size of
population served, the quantity of records created by the formerly
large industrial base (and now at risk due to the decline of the
manufacturing sector) and the developing agenda of securing future
archives which would reflect the new and diverse communities who
form a large part of the regional population.
Apart from the redevelopment of John Rylands
Library at the University of Manchester, and new accommodation
at Tameside, there have been no large-scale capital developments
in recent years. Other large schemes are at various stages of
development around the region and Cumbria Record Office has recently
secured a stage 1 pass with Heritage Lottery Fund for the replacement
of Carlisle Record Office (this project is scheduled for completion
in 2009). However, compared to the level of capital work which
has taken place for museums within the region, progress has been
minimal to date, which is partly due to the restricted capacity
of the sector to secure even limited funding to use to provide
the "matching" element for Heritage Lottery Fund bids,
and possibly even more severely, is due to the limited staffing,
knowledge and capacity within the sector to develop bids. With
only a total 370m3 of vacant archive accommodation available in
record offices and a further 155m3 in out-stores through out the
region, there is now insufficient capacity to ensure that major
collections, particularly of an industrial or business origin
could be preserved or could be accommodated if they were at risk.
Once lost, they are lost forever.
At a time when resources have been very restricted,
it has to be acknowledged that services in the NW have achieved
a great deal. The CIPFA statistics for 2005-06 reveal that the
region has the highest number of visits per head of population
(one out of 41) of any UK region, although staffing is the below
average (seventh out of 11 regions including Scotland and Wales).
It provides the highest number of reader or user spaces (818)
and microfilm readers (332) and the third highest number of computers
for public use (80), despite the third lowest gross expenditure
per head of population, (with only Scotland and the North East
lower). Similarly capital spend per head is the third lowest.
The North West houses the highest quantity of
archives of any region of the UK (IPFA Statistics 2005-06) with
9,759 cubic metres (m3) of material; much of this is uncatalogued
as was revealed in the LOGJAM study funded by MLA NW in conjunction
with the Regional Archives Council in 2002-03, which indicated
that 29% of regional holdings were uncatalogued. The project estimated
that 224 years of archivist time and 41 years of paraprofessional
staff time would be required to eliminate this backlog, assuming
no new records were received. Some other regions are now undertaking
parallel exercises using the LOGJAM methodology, illustrating
the benefits that can arise if enough money can be found to take
a pilot project forward to evolve solutions.
The lack of resources at individual service
level is mirrored at regional level. Although the Regional Archives
Council has managed to:
— promote three regional retro-conversion
projects [as part of the national Access to Archives (A2A) project
led by the National Archives, which has allowed small repositories
to take make many catalogues remotely accessible with great benefits
to users of all kinds],
— carry out the LOGJAM survey
mentioned above; and also
— undertake a regional Preservation
Needs Assessment, with financial support from the Regional MLA.
These have marked the limit of regional activities
with a specifically archival focus, apart from the regional dimension
to the Archive Awareness campaign in 2003. The poor settlement
received by MLA NW from its national parent in 2002, and further
worsened in the most recent review of MLA spending, results in
a situation where there are, for example, no project grants in
the NW, nor any prospect for further sector specific resources.
The fact that the NW was not a pilot for Renaissance in the Regions
has meant that there has been very little scope for archive activities
on the margins of museum activities, although there was some progress
through the Learning Links project. By comparison with the NE,
SW and West Midlands the NW has fared poorly, with the major exception
of a few large museums benefiting from major HLF funding and regional
museum hub funds.
National resourcing is also a major issue, as
highlighted by the information released earlier this year in the
written Parliamentary answer on annual support to the Museums,
Libraries and Archive sectors. While this does illustrate the
inequalities between the sectors in a crude way, we would argue
that redressing the balance should not be done through re-distribution
between the three sectors involved, but should be the result of
a fuller understanding of the value of all three sectors, and
the particular benefits which can be derived uniquely from each.
The policy of MLA of stressing the cross-sectoral benefits, while
valid in many respects, has not resulted in recognition of the
unique importance of archives, or supported adequate funding.
So, in summary, the resource situation for archives
in this region is worsening, at a time when public demand is increasing,
and also when the staff of archive repositories are actively trying
to develop their services to meet new areas of challenge. A first
simple step we would wish to see is the opening up of many existing
streams of funding which are currently confined to museums or
libraries, so that archives could apply. A good example currently
is the fact that designated archive and library collections cannot
apply to the Designation Challenge Fund, which is limited to museums.
Any possible areas of new funding would be welcome.
The RAC would support, for example, the proposal of the Goodison
Review for corporate tax relief for businesses to support expenditure
on the care and conservation of business archives. This would
be particularly useful in situations where business archives are
in the care or custody of public record repositories or universities.
Until there is a wider acceptance of the importance of archives
within government, the existing resource crisis will continue,
if not in fact worsen.
With regard to the 2012 Olympics, we cannot
see the impact of this, in the NW context, as being anything other
than almost certainly detrimental. The likely reduction in the
availability of HLF funding will unfortunately coincide with a
period when several large scale capital bids for archive accommodation
schemes in the region are nearing fruition. Our experience of
the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 has been that, despite
major benefits in the more immediate vicinity of the Games, the
overall regional benefit was slight, while the need of parent
organisations to concentrate on the Games further weakened the
strategic capacity of the archives sector to develop its own schemes.
ACQUISITION AND
DISPOSAL
At first glance this appears to be less directly
an issue for the archive sector, as most of the collections in
public repositories remain the property of the original owners,
and this is virtually always the case in business archives. However,
many archive services are unable to continue to acquire new collections
due to lack of facilities (particularly storage) of an acceptable
standard. For other services, high levels of public demand and
low staffing levels make it difficult to collect records on anything
other than a purely reactive basis. This also has a knock on effect;
it results in a greater risk of important historic records being
lost, as well as curtailing the ability of staff in outreach activities
to encourage new, more diverse audiences who in time would lead
to future archive deposits more illustrative of the community
at large. In this context we would re-iterate our previous point
about archive collecting being an activity in perpetuity. While
new areas for collection are undoubtedly developing, this cannot
be simply seen as replacing earlier ones, due to changes in fashionable
thinking. Collections policies should be subject to continuous
review, but with a view to extending, rather than simply re-focusing
them.
Even in areas where the region may appear to
be well placed such as the preservation of film and sound archives,
the situation is more complex. While the NW Film Archive, now
almost 30 years old, is moving slowly towards operating throughout
the entire region, its finances are far from secure. The NW Sound
Archive, founded in 1980, and for many years the only regional
sound archive in the country, is despite its name, only funded
by Lancashire County Council, the Association of Greater Manchester
Authorities (AGMA) and several organisations on Merseyside, with
the result that it cannot operate in Cumbria or Cheshire.
In the context of Accessioning, we would also
like to express our concerns about the trend towards more and
more archive material being offered for sale on the open market
and also the rising asking and hammer prices. Although these items
are only ever likely to form a small percentage of the holdings
of most record offices, some of the material is of great importance
and should be secured for the nation in perpetuity. Although the
existing funding bodies including the Heritage Lottery Fund have
been of great assistance in the purchasing of some material, there
is never a guarantee that funding will be available in any particular
case, even when equivalent material has already been "saved"
at public expense in another area of the country.
The informational content of each archive is
unique, and so it is not appropriate to draw parallels with, for
example, the purchase of fine art. We would also draw the Committee's
attention in this context to the tactic used by a growing number
of vendors of selling archive collections off on an item by item
basis ("cherry picking") thereby avoiding the need for
export licences in virtually all cases, and making it very difficult
for a public repository to ensure the survival of the entire collection,
even if they are able to raise funds. The break-up of collections,
such as the records of a company or family, reduces the research
value enormously for both academic and more general public research.
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF DCMS, MLA AND
OTHER RELEVANT
ORGANISATIONS
As a regional body, we feel we can comment mainly
on the effectiveness of DCMS and MLA in the specific regional
context, although naturally the development of national policies
and strategies (or the lack of them) does shape the regional situation
to a large degree. Both nationally and regionally we feel there
is an apparent lack of knowledge of and commitment to archives
at DCMS, evidenced by the almost total lack of involvement with
the sector by Government Office NW. This may well be a structural
result of the link through CultureNorthWest (the Cultural Consortium)
whose involvement with the sector has also been limited.
Nationally MLA have displayed some enthusiasm
and carried out some useful work, but we see no evidence of this
resulting in additional resources cascading down to support service
provision. We accept that both nationally and regionally MLA is
hampered by a lack of resources, which in turn makes such direct
service support infeasible. We are concerned that the current
phase of remodelling of national and regional staffing structures
at MLA along generic lines will reduce the organisation's knowledge
of the sector even further, particularly in the regions, and,
in the process, further impair MLA's ability to engage with the
archives sector. We acknowledge that, individually, many MLA staff
do excellent work, but we do feel in the North West that the momentum
we had developed in the early years of the RAC has been rather
dissipated of late, with MLA backing away from taking a key leadership
role in projects which relate only to the archive sector. We can
accept the need for strategies and vision, but without resulting
changes on the ground there will be no benefits to current and
future generations of users. The failure of our regional MLA to
form productive links to regional bodies such as the Regional
Development Agency in order to attract significant quantities
of extra funding are major concerns which will have to be addressed
very shortly if the regional MLA is to justify itself to the sector.
The other major government player in the archive
landscape is the National Archives (TNA). As a region, we have
seen major benefits from the more active role developed by the
former Public Record Office and Historical Manuscripts Commission
in the year before as well as after their merger in 2003. The
PRO leadership of the Access to Archives programmes and the work
on digital preservation and electronic records management are
outstanding examples of this. The acceptance by TNA that they
had to take a positive role due to the fragmentation and low resourcing
of the sector, and the very positive outcomes that resulted show
what can be achieved with strong joint working between the centre
and the regions.
CONCLUSION
The great issue facing all archive services
in the North West, and all other regions, is one of capacity,
which is inextricably linked to resources. This is capacity not
only in the traditional areas of activity such as proper preservation
through storage and access to skilled conservators, or cataloguing,
public access and educational work, but also in new areas such
as digital preservation, electronic records management, community
archives and ensuring that both the user-base and collections
reflect the diversity of 21st century communities.
Lack of resources is very acute in the North
West region. Despite the best efforts of many organisations, including
professional and user organisations and many of the funders who
support archives in the region, the position in many cases appears
to be deteriorating from an already low base. Without drastic
action, such as placing a statutory requirement on principal local
authorities to provide archive services or requiring compliance
with standards across all public sector archives, matched by an
increase in funding to all organisations prepared to make their
archive publicly available, it is difficult to see this situation
being reversed. Action by central government is essential to achieve
this turnaround.
25 September 2006
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