Cabinet Papers

The Cabinet Office

The Cabinet Office provides the secretariat for the Cabinet and its committees. It maintains a systematic keeping of records of their meetings and business; Several hundred committees have been created.

From its inception in 1916 the central purpose of the Cabinet Office was to act as the secretariat for the Cabinet and its committees: the arrangement of meetings, circulation of agendas and papers, the preparation of minutes, and the drafting of reports.

While the Office does not usually have an executive role in the carrying out of Cabinet decisions, which is the duty of the relevant government department, it has had co-ordination functions at various times. This was especially the case during the Second World War. The Office has also developed areas of expertise, which are cross departmental in nature, on which it offers advice such as drafts of answers to parliamentary questions, conduct of ministers and security.

From the first meeting of the War Cabinet on the 9 December 1916, Maurice Hankey, the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, was in attendance and the Cabinet Office came into being.

At the end of the First World War and the return to a full cabinet in 1919 the Cabinet Office was reorganised. There was a Home Affairs Branch, which became the Cabinet Office proper, and an Imperial, External Affairs and Defence Branch, which in 1922 emerged as the secretariat of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Hankey being secretary of both. However, there was no basic change from the War Cabinet methods of record-keeping and by the mid-1920s the Cabinet Office was confirmed as a permanent part of the machinery of government.

When Edward Bridges succeeded Hankey in 1938 the composite office became known as the Offices of the Cabinet, Committee of Imperial Defence, Economic Advisory Council and Minister for Co-ordination of Defence.

During the Second World War, there was no basic change in the organisation of the Office. It came to include the Chiefs of Staff organisation, the staff of the Minister of Defence from May 1940 and in 1941 the Central Statistical Office and Economic Section.

From the end of the Second World War until the incorporation of the Management and Personnel Office in 1981-82 the functions of the Cabinet Office remain substantially as established by Hankey, though other major responsibilities were undertaken by it from time to time, and non-departmental ministers and officials have been attached to it.

Searching in DocumentsOnline

DocumentsOnline already holds papers from catalogue references CAB 128 and CAB 129, which are papers from 1971 to 1977. These are currently held in the categories "Home & Foreign Affairs" and "New Releases". These existing scans will be replaced with full text searchable files by the end of 2008. The new files will be moved to a new category called "Cabinet Papers".

You can use different search techniques to find specific CAB documents:

Using Quick Search

The Quick Search box is near the top left of the page. To search by the catalogue reference type the complete catalogue reference into the Quick Search box. Remember to leave a space between "CAB" and the numeric reference, for example, CAB 129/170/10.

To search for a specific term, enter it in Quick Search enclosed in double quotation marks, for example, "shipping losses". This type of search might return a list of results from more than one category. If so, click on "Cabinet Papers" from within the list of search results.

You can also refine your search by selecting a date range from the box below Quick search, for example 1950 - 1999.

Using Advanced Search

To search for all cabinet papers from a particular year, enter the "From" and "To" dates as 1940 (for example), deselect "All Categories" and then select only the category "Cabinet Papers". This returns all the cabinet papers for that year. You can also narrow down your search by adding keywords to it.

Using a former departmental reference

The minutes and conclusions of Cabinet meetings were taken by the secretary of the Cabinet and filed under a unique document reference. So, for example, to look for the file on the Icelandic fisheries dispute, former departmental reference CP(72)63, enter "CP(72)63", enclosed in double quotation marks, in the Quick Search box on the left of your screen.

Exempt Material

Some information within these records may have been retained by the Cabinet Office (under the Public Records Act 1958), or may be closed to public access as being exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The scanned images will show where this has occurred. It is possible to request a review of any such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 using the contact form provided on our website.

Depending on the nature of the Cabinet Office papers, all papers are filed within individual series. The sources are more fully described in the Catalogue.

Useful links

A link to the new Cabinet Papers website will be posted here as soon as it is launched.

Click on the links to see these free National Archives research guides:

The News section of The National Archives website has an archive of new releases, including New Documents Releases from 1999 to 2007.

For online access to documents from the Macmillan government of 1957-1963 please visit