Lancashire Record Office, Monday 25 November 2002

Present: Dennis Baxter (FFHS)

Penny Feltham (co-opted)

Jim Grisenthwaite (ACALG) Chair

John Gurney (HMC)

Roy Hughes (Historical Association)

Bruce Jackson (Society of Archivists) Secretary

Lesley Owen-Edwards (BAC);

Colin Philips (co-opted),

David Stoker (Merseyside Archives Liaison Group)

Janice Taylor (NW Regional Archives Development Officer)

Alex Cave (LOGJAM editor)

Paul Jardine (Jura Consultants) for item 3

1 Apologies for Absence

Clare Connor (Libraries North West), Alan Crosby (BALH), Marion Hewitt (Film Archive Forum), John Hodgson (SCONUL), Richard Hoyle ( Royal Historical Society), Chris Lewis (BRA), Kevin Mulley (Greater Manchester Archivists Group), Jonathan Pepler (NW County Archivists Group),

Ian Taylor (NWMS), Francis Thomson (CURL), Caroline Williams (LUCAS)

2 Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

The minutes of the meeting of 17 September were agreed (subject to a few minor spelling corrections) and signed.

The following matters arising were raised:

Item 2 (2.9.2) Civil Registration . Janice Taylor (JT) had been in contact with the Office of National Statistics, who had supplied her with some figures (about 5 years old) about the quantities of civil registration material. She will circulate this to those interested on request.

Item 2 (6.5) Regional Film Study. Jim Grisenthwaite (JG) and David Stoker (DS) had met with the consultant appointed to look at film archive provision, Paul Habergham. The report, sponsored by NW Vision, was due by the end of November.

Item 2 (6.1) As agreed at the previous meeting, the Draft Procedural Regulations developed by NCA for the RACs were adopted formally for the governance of the NW RAC, proposed by Roy Hughes (RH) and seconded by Bruce Jackson (BJ). Under the new regulations, the number of co-opted members has been increased, and under this regulation, Penny Feltham (PF) had been invited to join the Council, providing a useful link to Museums which hold archive material. A copy of the regulations is appended to the minutes.

2. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising (Cont)

Item 5.2. BJ gave an update on the progress of the legislation to enable the creation of Regional assemblies. The Bill had been placed before parliament and was expected to secure first and second readings by Xmas, with Royal Assent during the spring. The North West Regional Assembly (NWRA) organisation had been contacted, and was discussing a referendum in Spring 2004. There was no clear indication at the moment about how an Assembly might approach service delivery, but a major implication for archive provision was apparent in the indication that the creation of unitary local government units was a requirement for the move to regional assemblies. It will be important to open channels of communication with the NWRA, both for the RAC itself and the Single Regional Agency (SRA).

Item 6.3 The additional spending allocated following the publication of the Renaissance in the Regions report had been regarded by the museums community as disappointingly small. There is now an indication that the proposed regional Hubs may be introduced on a phased basis, and there appears to a feeling that the NW may be one of the first regions to be funded.

3 Single Regional Agency for the North West – Progress Report

JG introduced Paul Jardine (PJ) of Jura Consultants to the meeting. Jura Consultants have been appointed to facilitate the preparation of the business plan for the new SRA, and he was now involved in looking to discuss key issues with the domain based organisations such as the RAC. Three key questions to be addressed were:

PJ asked if the RAC felt that its aims have changed from those formulated in the Regional Archive strategy document, to which the general consensus was that the document was still an accurate reflection of policy priorities for the domain. PJ also indicated that he wished to get the views of members on what aspects of strategic delivery should be carried out by the domain, and which by the SRA. He felt that the existence of the Regional Archive Strategy document was a very useful tool to already have. There was general agreement that the Archive domain was in a weaker position that Museums and libraries on account of the lack of previous investment in, and resources for, domain based regional bodies. The small scale of many archive operations also contributed to the existing lack of capacity within the domain.

The discussion was wide ranging and following issues were raised:

PJ noted that he would be preparing a report for the NWMLAC Board meeting to be held on 2 December, and asked that any additional comments be sent to him as soon as possible.

After this discussion, the meeting returned to the agenda.

JG reported that an extraordinary meeting of the NWMS was to be held on Friday 29 November, at which it would be proposed that the new constitutional arrangements be adopted which will change NWMS into the North West Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (NWMLAC). This route towards forming the new regional agency has been chosen for charitable and company registration purposes only. If this meeting agrees to the change, the first meeting of the new Board will formally take place on Monday 2 December, with the Board then comprising the three representatives from each of the three domains. The immediate tasks then to be dealt with are:

Submission of a draft business plan to Resource

Recruitment to the post of Chief Executive of the new body

Recruitment of the 6 additional board members to be recruited through public advert.

It was now necessary that the RAC formally nominate its representatives form membership of the NWMLAC, and the meeting formally agreed to nominate Jim Grisenthwaite, John Hodgson and Bruce Jackson.

4 Archive Development Officer (ADO) – Progress report

4.1 Janice Taylor (JT) reported that a manager had now been appointed to the LOGJAM project, and introduced Alex Cave. This will enable work to be begun on the project.

4.2 The regional seminar on Records Management had been held on 22 November and had been well attended, with about 70 attendees. Many of them were from organisations who had previously not been involved in either RAC or RM activities which was felt to be a very useful outcome. Links would be maintained with these new contacts. There was considerable interest expressed about Data Protection and Freedom of Information requirements, and how RM could support these.

4.3 Regional Archives Festival, September 2003. Initial publicity had now gone out, aimed at organisations, groups and societies who might be encouraged to stage an event or activity. It was hoped that HLF support would be forthcoming.

5 Other Regional Issues

5.1 The revised procedural arrangements for the RAC had already been adopted. [See minute 2, item 2(6.1) above].

5.2 Edgehill Conference, 24 January 2003. The mailing had now been sent out to potential delegates by the College.

5.3 Regional Cultural Consortium (RCC). The RCC has now been established for 2 years, and DCMS have decided to change the constitution of all such bodies substantially. Membership is to be streamlined, with only one representative form the Museums, Libraries and Archive sector. This is to be discussed at the first NWMLAC meeting on 2 December, but JG proposed that the RAC should suggest that the most appropriate course of action would be for the person appointed as Chief Executive of NWMLAC to be the representative on the RCC. If there were to be both Member and Officer representation, then the Chairman of the NWMLAC Board, and the Chief Executive would appear the appropriate nominees. There was agreement that this suggestion be taken to the NWMLAC meeting.

6 Resource

6.1 Dawn Routledge had now left Resource. An advertisement had been placed to recruit a replacement, but so far it was not known that an appointment had been made.

6.2 The membership of the Archive Task Force had now been announced. The initial meeting was scheduled for late November, but nothing further was known yet.

6.3 The new Chief Executive of Resource, Anna Southall, was now in post. She has stated an intention to visit all regions, not only to meet the single regional agency personnel, but possibly also the domains. She has also expressed an interest in visiting archives, museum and library services.

6.5 Following the announcement in the summer regarding the formation of the National Archives on 1 April 2003, when the PRO and HMC are to merge, there was little immediate to report. It appeared that HMC functions would be continuing, although the staff would be relocating to Kew. National archival legislation is still expected in 2004/2005. A corporate business plan is in preparation.

7 RAC Budget Report

In the absence of the Treasurer, BJ reported that balances currently stood at £5425.03 although an invoice was still awaited from NWMS for the cost of JT attending the Society of Archivists Conference in October. It was important that the balances be spent up, as there was a strong possibility of claw-back of any un-spent funds at year-end. JT queried whether there was a contribution to be made to the next Regional A2A project from the existing balances.

8 Any other business

There was no other business raised.

9 Date of next meeting

The next meeting would be held at Lancashire Record Office on Monday 3 February 2003 at 2.00pm.