Request
1. I would like to ask how many directorates has the TNA. The Corporate Services and the Commercial have directorate status?
2. I would like to ask about the main functions and tasks of the departments of the Corporate Services Directorate. What are the main tasks of each department:
a. The IT Operations, the Estates and Facilities, the Finance.
b. The Business Development, the Procurement, Project Delivery and Contract Management, the Licensing and Publishing, the Digitisation
c. The Public Engagement Directorate in TNA: Marketing and Communications, Events and Exhibitions, Collections Expertise and Engagement, Visitor Experience, Education and Outreach. Also, formerly, the structure of the Directorate also included the following departments: Venue Management Services and Document Services, where have they been moved?
d. What are the main tasks of each department: the HR and Organisational Development and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
e. The Public Access and Government Services: the Government Services, Strategy and Engagement, the Document Services and the Information Rights.
f. The department Transformation Programme Subject Matter in the Digital Directorate? What is the official name of the Department: the Digital Service Assessments or the Transformation Programme Subject Matter, or maybe Digital Risk, Standards, and Engagement.
Outcome
Information provided.
Response
1. I would like to ask how many directorates has the TNA. The Corporate Services and the Commercial have directorate status?
The National Archives has seven directorates:
- Digital
- Commercial
- Public Access & Government Services
- Corporate Services
- People, Inclusion & Change
- Public Engagement
- Research and Collections
2. I would like to ask about the main functions and tasks of the departments of the Corporate Services Directorate. What are the main tasks of each department
a. The IT Operations, the Estates and Facilities, the Finance
IT Operations
IT Operations is responsible for providing, developing and supporting ICT facilities.
Our responsibilities:
- End user support, Service Desk & Customer Relations
- Change & Availability Management
- Service Level Management
- IT Incident Management and Service Continuity
- Support for corporate systems
- IT Financial and Contract Management
- IT Asset management
Estates and Facilities
The Estates and Facilities department is responsible for all aspects of The National Archives building with its 180 kilometres of repository shelving and the 13 acre site on which it stands, including a pocket park, pond and lake. Our job is to provide a suitable infrastructure and pleasant environment for our staff and our visitors.
What we do – key areas include:
- Repository Document Environmental Conditions
- Security
- Mechanical and Electrical services, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning)
- Health and Safety
- Cleaning of the building
- Ground maintenance
- Car Park management
- Sustainable Development
- Reprographic services (Fastcopy)
- Portering
- Post management
Key responsibilities include:
Maintain the equipment to provide the correct climatic conditions for staff and documents, both of which have very different needs in temperature and humidity
Undertake projects to include small items such as the installation of a single power point to total refurbishment of work areas
Space planning and providing the furniture to accomplish it and also provide various other types of equipment
Asseting and registering furniture and equipment that comes into Kew
Provision of a number of central services to include: pest control and stationery to name but a few
Finance
We support decision making about financial resources across the department, the processes of budgeting, accounting and cash management alongside delivering associated financial systems and transactional services.
We are responsible for:
- In-year finance management and financial advice and support
- Management reporting
- Financial reporting
- Transactional services, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management and finance systems.
b. The Business Development, the Procurement, Project Delivery and Contract Management, the Licensing and Publishing, the Digitisation
Business Development
As part of our strategic vision to be an Entrepreneurial, Inclusive and Disruptive Archive, we are always searching for ways to diversify and widen our funding base, allowing us to further invest in the evolution of The National Archives. The Business Development function is to identify new opportunities, to scope these out, and turn them into credible and deliverable projects. The aim is to create projects and partnerships that generate income for the organisation, enhance our reputation and widen our skills base.
Procurement and Contract Management
The Procurement & Contract Management Team exists to ensure that The National Archives acquires the goods and services it needs in ways that represent best value for money and that are compliant with public sector procurement policies. We work with colleagues across the organisation to realise pragmatic solutions to business needs and support colleagues in commercial negotiations with potential and existing suppliers.
Licensing, Publishing & Digitisation
We are responsible for developing licensing partnerships with both commercial companies and academic organisations to make our records available to remote users. The licensing activities of The National Archives are regarded as the definitive model for the sector and often cited as the gold standard in archive licensing.
Working with digital publishers, both domestic and international, particularly in Family History and Academia we have built an extensive and robust licensing program.
In addition to working with commercial companies’ enquiries, we also assist our partners in the discovery of TNA records through methods such as Tenders, LIAs and Opportunities. These offer well researched curations of record sets, inviting partners to propose their interest in the digitisation of such collections.
As we digitise and license more and more records, across an expanding range of subjects, in a variety of ways, researchers are increasingly presented with alternatives to visiting our site in Kew, to explore our unique collections.
c. The Public Engagement Directorate in TNA: Marketing and Communications, Events and Exhibitions, Collections Expertise and Engagement, Visitor Experience, Education and Outreach. Also, formerly, the structure of the Directorate also included the following departments: Venue Management Services and Document Services, where have they been moved?
Marketing and Communications
The role of the Marketing and Communications team is to present and promote The National Archives, its vision, services and expertise to a diverse range of external audiences and to facilitate a two-way dialogue with our staff. To do this, we work closely with a wide range of The National Archives’ stakeholders to help them identify their communication needs and to deliver material that gets their messages across in a timely, user friendly and cost-effective manner.
Events and Exhibitions
The role of the Events & Exhibitions team is to provide a way for the public to engage with The National Archives, other than in the reading rooms. We do this by creating exhibitions in the gallery space, temporary displays, and developing a programme of public talks.
Collections Expertise and Engagement
Collections Expertise and Engagement provides both expert knowledge of the records of The National Archives and advice on how to access and interpret them. We have expertise in historical periods and subjects as well as the records themselves and our staff are drawn from a mixture of backgrounds, including the military, academic and business sectors.
Visitor Experience
The role of Visitor Experience Department is to ensure that every visitor to TNA has the best experience possible, comparable to any cultural institution; to manage our public spaces; and to manage corporate complaints and service feedback.
Education and Outreach
The Education & Outreach department is responsible for using our incredible collection of documents to engage and inspire students, teachers and communities at risk of exclusion through a series of online and onsite workshops, outreach programmes & web-based resources.
Education deliver a range of services to school teachers and students. Throughout the school term we run a series of weekly onsite workshops in Kew as well as connecting to classrooms nationwide via our online programme. We also lead offsite projects and have a thriving SEND and teacher training programme. Our Online Team manage an award-winning website for teachers, offering a huge variety of resources, lesson plans and videos to engage students with our documents and facilitate their studies.
The Outreach, Young Person & Family Team deliver events and exhibitions to a diverse audience. We utilise the National Archives records to present them through creative interpretation, including artistic, poetic and dramatic ways. The team has a remit to communicate regionally and foster new relationships in the sector.
Venue Management Services has been renamed and reformed and is now called Visitor Experience. It includes front of house management, Your Views (visitor feedback), venue hire, AV support and manages the café contract.
Document Services has been moved to the Public Access & Government Services directorate.
d. What are the main tasks of each department: the HR and Organisational Development and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Human Resources and Organisational Development
Human Resources supports The National Archives in the delivery of its objectives through people. We partner with departments, providing expertise in policy, best practice and employment law on the full range of people-related matters including recruitment and selection, employee relations, pay, policy, organisational change, and everything in between. We support employees to perform at their best, providing wellbeing support and initiatives, confidential advice, learning and development, and access to further professional guidance through our Employee Assistance Programme.
Learning and Development
The Learning and Development team works to ensure that people can be supported and developed in their role.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Everyone’s lived experience and perspectives have a pivotal part to play in our becoming an Archive for Everyone. How we’ll approach our DEI work will involve:
- Bringing in new ideas, by listening and responding to real needs and aspirations
- Supporting colleagues’ wellbeing, and sense of belonging
- Constructively challenging assumptions while breaking down perceived risks and barriers at all levels of the organisation
- Empowering us as an organisation to find solutions with DEI at the heart of all we do and want to achieve
- Transforming the ways we work with one another, enriching our workforce, our culture and our behaviours with people from all walks of life
- Meeting our inclusive shared outcomes together by working with as many people as possible right across The National Archives.
e. The Public Access and Government Services: the Government Services, Strategy and Engagement, the Document Services and the Information Rights
Government Services, Strategy and Engagement
We guide, supervise and co-ordinate activities to enable government departments to comply with their responsibilities under the Public Records Act 1958, including the transition to the 20-year-rule, and other information rights legislation including the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018, and Crown Copyright.
Document Services
The main role of the Document Services Department (DSD) is to preserve the record holdings of The National Archives in a secure, controlled environment. Document Services is responsible for retrieving original archival material for all stakeholders, including members of the public, staff, and government. Additionally, DSD provides advice and guidance for visitors and enquirers, and maintains the security of the record in our Reading Rooms.
Information Rights
Information Rights covers Freedom of Information, Data Protection and Copyright
Freedom of Information
Our main role is to take responsibility for the effective handling of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, as well as Subject Access (SAR) and Environmental Information (EIR) requests, received by The National Archives.
FOI requests to TNA fall into four broad categories:
- Requests for access to closed public records (received mainly through Discovery)
- Requests for TNA’s business (corporate) information (i.e. IT contract details)
- Requests for information held within the open public records (Paid Search – service operated by CEE).
- Requests for information within MoD service personnel records (service operated by MoD Access Service Team)
Data Protection
The Data Protection Officer oversees compliance with the applicable data protection rules and legislation for all the processing of personal data of TNA’s staff, customers, providers or any other individuals including that of living people in TNA’s archival holdings.
Copyright
We provide specialist knowledge of copyright law and the practical application of Crown copyright through the licensing of rights. We work with cross-government stakeholders and other public sector bodies who have responsibility to manage Crown copyright within their organisations, as well as answering licensing and copyright questions from external enquirers. We raise awareness of copyright and licensing issues, such as the Open Government Licence.
f. The department Transformation Programme Subject Matter in the Digital Directorate? What is the official name of the Department: the Digital Service Assessments or the Transformation Programme Subject Matter, or maybe Digital Risk, Standards, and Engagement
This is a small unit within the Digital Directorate rather than a fully-fledged Department. The unit is responsible for running the internal Digital Service Assessments programme.
Digital Service Assessments: Service Assessments are the means through which we understand whether and how our services are meeting the government’s Service Standard. They are applicable to new services, replacing existing services, or enhancements to existing services. The internal Service Assessment Programme aims to achieve consistent good practice across all our digital services. The assessments are a checkpoint, helping to share knowledge and unblock problems. They provide an opportunity to develop a culture of reflective practice, constructive challenge, and to strengthen the accountability of service teams for their decisions.