Annual report and accounts 2022–23 highlights

We are transforming our historic mission for the digital age, developing new skills and exploiting emerging technology

 
■ Our new Find Case Law service is now up and running and the programme that underpins it, Transfer Digital Records (TDR), is being used daily by the Supreme Court, High Court and Court of Appeal. These cutting-edge digital technologies enable us to accession Court Judgments and Tribunal Decisions for the first time, important judicial records that complement our other collections of public records.

■ Lawmaker, our innovative service to aid parliamentary clerks create Bills and Statutory Instruments, has been getting into its stride. Around 500 users are now using the service and we are continually improving performance and stability.

■ We archived an average of 200 websites every month through 2022-23, including key material documenting the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the appointment of Prime Ministers, the rising cost of living and the invasion of Ukraine.

■ The Gazette fulfilled its role as the official newspaper of record throughout a year of momentous events: an extraordinary edition announced the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 9 September 2022, followed by the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III.

■ The legislation.gov.uk website continued to provide a vital source of legal certainty and information for the public, recording 103,993 amendments to legislation over the past 12 months — a 1% increase on last year. This unrivalled online compendium also enabled us to provide expert advice to government in preparation for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

We are bold, active and outward-looking – encountered by people and communities in unexpected places and at vital moments

 
■ Our public offer has steadily grown since the COVID-19 pandemic and we saw nearly 75,000 visitors on site over the past year, 36% more than last year. We saw 30% higher demand from readers during the past financial year, who viewed nearly 475,000 documents on site. On social media, we now have over 376,000 followers across all channels and our content has generated more than 20 million impressions.

■ Our Treason: People, Power and Plot exhibition brought together for the first time iconic documents about Guy Fawkes, Anne Boleyn, Charles I and many others, leading audiences through the centuries to explore how the definition of treason has changed. We produced our first video tour to accompany the exhibition and a major new book, A History of Treason.

■ We marked several occasions of national and historical importance over the year. In June 2022, we celebrated Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee by digitising a collection of documents and snapshots and, following her sad passing in September, we invited people to express their condolences with us.

■ From April 2022 to March 2023, we reached a record 19,000 students in workshops on site, online or offsite, or through our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) programme. 87% of teachers rated our sessions ‘excellent’ and people said our resources were ‘fantastic’ and ‘pitched appropriately and fitted perfectly with our GCSE unit’. We published many new resources including a teachers’ book on Diverse Histories, and online education packs on the history of sugar and tobacco, nineteenth-century protest and, with Goldsmiths University of London, the independence of Bangladesh.

We lead, enable and inspire pioneering research by fostering community, collaborative engagement, and inclusive practice

 
■ We have been working on a number of exciting new heritage science and conservation projects in collaboration with the wider UK cultural heritage sector. With the National Maritime Museum, we have been analysing the secrets contained in Admiral Nelson’s uniform, investigating the materiality of rare Armada maps with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and exploring dyes in King Charles I’s execution shirt at the Museum of London.

■ We are forging ahead with our work on the Prize Papers, a sprawling collection of documents and artifacts legally seized from ships by the British Royal Navy between 1652 and 1817. One illuminating find from the collection was brought to life in early 2023 with a sell-out Unheard Opera, exploring a collection of musical manuscripts containing pieces believed not to have been performed in several centuries.

■ Last year saw the launch of a project to recreate a lost archive through the wonders of virtual technology: the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI). VRTI is a rich online platform to explore records from the Irish Record Treasury, which was destroyed by a fire at the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. Thanks to an international collaborative effort led by Trinity College Dublin, along with founding partners the National Archives of Ireland, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the Irish Manuscripts Commission and us, you can now explore substantial parts of the lost collection online. Our research as part of the project on the use of iron gall ink and gallic acid ‘treatment’ provides lasting benefits not only for the documents within the VRTI, which can now be read, but also our broader understanding of using imaging techniques on faded or damaged documents.

■ Our research events brought people together from across professions to generate important conversations. In March, our brand new ‘History and Archives in Practice’ conference, co-organised with the Institute of Historical Research and the Royal Historical Society, was a sell out success. Our Annual Digital Lecture showcased innovative research on AI, with Professor Kate Crawford from USC Annenberg speaking about ‘Ground Truth: In the Archives That Train Machine Learning’.

We support archives of all kinds to sustain and develop their services

 
■ After ten years as the UK Government’s lead for archives in England, we have been reviewing our approach to sector leadership this year ready to launch a refreshed offer in summer 2023. It has been a difficult year for the sector, with inflationary pressures tightening resources as some areas continue to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of our aim to be an effective leader and advocate, we have focused our recent support for the sector on meeting these challenges.

■ Despite a challenging year, in the 12 months to March, places of deposit that are eligible for the New Burdens funding that we distribute successfully received 977 linear metres of public records.

■ Our new Records at Risk and Resilience Funds awarded over £103,000 to help mitigate the rising cost of living and maintain collections at risk. We also distributed £660,000 of New Burdens funding to support the sector manage the transition to the 20-year rule, our Archives Testbed Fund awarded nearly £75,000 to support archives to enhance their sustainability and engage local communities, and our cataloguing grants programme, Archives Revealed, awarded nearly £380,000, in partnership with The Wolfson Foundation and the Pilgrim Trust.

■ To replace the annual Archive Services Statistics Survey, we have developed our own Local Authority Archive Benchmarking Exercise, which this year saw contributions from 68% of services in England and Wales.

■ In June 2022, we celebrated the centenary of the Law and Property Act 1922 with a reception hosted by the Master of the Rolls at the Royal Courts of Justice. The event was an opportunity to celebrate the project to digitise the catalogues of manorial documents, important records that centuries later retain significant relevance for legal and research purposes. In partnership with Nottingham University, we also ran a conference to celebrate current and innovative research.