Material produced by public bodies which have Crown status is subject to Crown copyright protection under Section 163 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The National Archives is not responsible for deciding or determining Crown status, and any enquiries as to whether a particular organisation is a Crown body should be directed initially to the body in question.
In some cases, certain Crown bodies (such as Trading Funds) have a Delegation of Authority from the Keeper to license the re-use of material they produce. In such cases re-users need to obtain permission from these bodies directly. The National Archives has also produced a Permanent Secretary’s Guide to Copyright (PDF, 0.88MB).
If you are a Crown body undergoing a change of status please inform TNA’s Policy Team.
There is no comprehensive list of Crown bodies. The National Archives used to publish a list of Crown bodies that was not complete or authoritative, but this is no longer updated. You can access the former list from the UK Government Web Archive.