Reports

The links below will take you to various reports on The National Archives. Much of the work here goes on behind the scenes and these reports will give you some idea of the range of tasks we are involved in.

Annual report and resource accounts 2006-2007

The fourth annual report and resource accounts on the work of The National Archives has now been published, along with the fourth report of the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives.

Notable achievements this year:

Onsite Services

During 2006/07, we received over 235,000 onsite visitors to Kew and the Family Records Centre in Islington. Responding to the ever-increasing demand and interest in family history, our Kew 2008 programme, announced as part of our Vision and involving the transfer of the Family Records Centre (FRC) services and staff in Islington to Kew, will provide our customers with a world-class integrated reader experience on one site, offering access to both online resources and personal staff expertise, including importantly, a strong family history service and help for specialist researchers.

As the move is likely to result in a substantial increase in daily visitors to Kew, we are currently reviewing and redesigning our onsite customer facilities to accommodate this increase in visitor numbers.

Online Services

We have yet again exceeded many of our online user targets, significantly improving on our target for page views and documents downloaded from our website. Attracting over 22 million unique visits per year and with over 60 million documents downloaded, last year we more than doubled our target for online visits.

During 2006/07, we have made huge strides in delivering our ambitious digitisation programme, the most large-scale example of this being the launch of Domesday Online, the digital version of the Domesday Book. Other significant launches this year included the provision of outward-bound online passenger lists, an advanced Latin online tutorial, the digitisation of WW1 soldiers´ records and the launch of the online exhibition Caribbean Histories Revealed.

The launch of our ground-breaking Global Search facility also played a crucial role in helping to improve the overall experience of our website users. This invaluable resource now provides a unified enterprise platform simultaneously querying over 30 million documents, returning hits with Google-like speeds.

Supporting the wider work of Government

As part of the Government´s strategy to make important information more readily accessible for Internet users, we have collaborated closely with Government departments to ensure proper processes are put in place to archive Government websites before they close down.

We have also continued to play a key role in supporting government through Freedom of Information across all of our records, which span virtually all departments, this year receiving the second highest number of enquiries across government.

Responding to the opportunity to share information and work together, this year we introduced a new initiative, the Information Management Assessment programme, which assesses the level of risk central government bodies face, through poor information management and non-compliance with the FOI Act´s Code of Practice on records management, with the ultimate aim that information and knowledge management is widely recognised as a core activity across government.

Partnerships

Over the course of the year, we continued a number of successful collaborations with our commercial partners, most recently awarding the 1911 census digitisation contract to Scotland Online.

Additionally, our piloting of the self-assessment of Local Authority archive services and our work on the preparation of a new Government policy on archives, has further strengthened our support of the archive sector.

This year we also continued to collaborate and develop new relationships in the academic community, actively engaging in research projects across a number of disciplines working with a wide range of academic institutions.

We also strengthened strategic partnerships with our international archival partners, hosting a number of meetings here at Kew, exploring areas of mutual concern and interest.

Annual report and resource accounts 2006-2007

The annual report explains what we have done in the past year and our plans for the future.

Download the Annual Report (1624.67kb)

Download the resource accounts 2006/2007 (160.50kb)

Independent complaints reviewer's report 2006-2007

The independent complaints reviewer's reports give an overview of complaints received by The National Archives and the way in which they were dealt with. We receive very few complaints, and like to think that we handle these promptly and politely.

Download as PDF document (49.47kb)

Advisory Council report 2006-2007

The Advisory Council on National Records and Archives advises the Lord Chancellor on all matters relating to archives, manuscripts and records. This is the Council's second report of its work.

Download the Advisory Council report 2006-2007 (51.61kb)

Background to the Office of Public Sector Information

The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) brings together a portfolio of information policy and management responsibilities that embrace official, legal and statutory roles across publishing, UK legislation, licensing, Crown copyright and database policy and regulation of the re-use of public sector information (PSI).