Historical Records

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Access ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Public Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Code Of Practice ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Information Regime

Chapter 7 examines the relationship between the freedom of information regime established by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and the pre-existing statutory regime governing the keeping of public records under the Public Records Act 1958. It describes the processes by which public records are transferred to the Public Record Office and opened to public access, and the progressive replacement of the ‘30-year rule’ with a ‘20-year rule’. It explains the separate, but related, concept of ‘historical records’ introduced by the 2000 Act, and the removal of certain exemptions by reference to the age of documents. The special procedures applicable to requests for information in transferred public records that have not been opened to the public are set out. The chapter then summarizes the guidance given to relevant authorities about the above matters by the Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice and the National Archives.

scholarly journals The last forum of accountability? State secrecy, intelligence and freedom of information in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melina J. Dobson
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Sensitive Material ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record

The official mechanisms of intelligence oversight and accountability in the United Kingdom are arguably disjointed and ineffective. Thus, informal actors such as journalists, have played a more significant role. In addition, a rise of whistleblowers and leakers, such as Chelsea Manning, have highlighted the importance of online archives as an avenue for accountability. The United Kingdom is legally bound to place official documents on the public record at the National Archives. Sensitive material on intelligence and other security subjects majorly impedes the bulk release of documents. Inevitably, the inclination to ‘weed’ sensitive material from mundane documents has resulted in a costly declassification process. Evidence suggests that historians successfully investigated these subjects through the use of archives, despite the efforts of officials to obfuscate. This article argues that historians increasingly constitute the last forum of accountability and that routine declassification is an important, but neglected aspect of our machinery of intelligence oversight.

scholarly journals Agency Perspectives on Online Public Records Request Portals

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Alexa Capeloto
Keyword(s):  
Software As A Service ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Public Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contextual Framework ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Process Level

Spurred by converging trends facilitated by the interactive web, government agencies are moving to digitize and make more transparent the public record request (PRR) process via dual-facing online portals. Such portals, often provided by third-party vendors as SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, are built on the premise and promise of helping agencies streamline their internal workflows while aiding requesters through the sometimes labyrinthine process of accessing public records. This research aims to study the effects and efficacy of such portals from the agency perspective, both at the process level and in a broader sense of reshaping the relationship between citizen and government. Set within a contextual framework of the trends from which these portals have emerged, a survey of 54 U.S. public jurisdictions suggests that online portals are significantly improving agencies’ internal and external processes of receiving, tracking, and responding to requests for public records, but do not necessarily bring correlative improvement in their overall relationship with citizens for a number of possible reasons.

Archiving the British Raj

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Raj ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Central Archive

The archives are generally sites where historians conduct research into our past. Seldom are they objects of research. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya traces the path that led to the creation of a central archive in India, from the setting up of the Imperial Record Department, the precursor of the National Archives of India, and the Indian Historical Records Commission, to the framing of archival policies and the change in those policies over the years. In the last two decades of colonial rule in India, there were anticipations of freedom in many areas of the public sphere. These were felt in the domain of archiving as well, chiefly in the form of reversal of earlier policies. From this perspective, Bhattacharya explores the relation between knowledge and power and discusses how the World Wars and the decline of Britain, among other factors, effected a transition from a Eurocentric and disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethnocentric one.

A fragment of Bede's De Temporum Ratione in the Public Record Office

1983 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 125-128
Author(s):  
Michael Roper
Keyword(s):  
Public Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Record

A manuscript fragment containing part of ch. 47 of Bede's De Temporum Ratione has recently been identified in the State Papers Supplementary in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane (London), where it has the reference SP 46/125, fol. 302 (see pl. I).1 It was added to the volume in which it is now to be found in June 1925, on the authority of C. S. B. Buckland, an Assistant Keeper of the Public Records, but no information appears to have survived about its source.

Getting at the Live Archive: On Access to Information Research in Canada

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 623-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Walby ◽  
Mike Larsen
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
Dirty Data ◽  
Information Research ◽  
Public Record ◽  
Constitutional Right

Most of the draft documents, memoranda, communications, and other textual materials amassed by government agencies do not become public record unless efforts are taken to obtain their release. One mechanism for doing so is “access to information” (ATI) or “freedom of information” (FOI) law. Individuals and organizations in Canada have a quasi-constitutional right to request information from federal, provincial, and municipal levels of government. A layer of bureaucracy has been created to handle these requests and manage the disclosure of information, with many organizations having special divisions, coordinators, and associated personnel for this purpose. The vast majority of public organizations are subject to the federal Access to Information Act (ATIA) or the provincial and municipal equivalents.We have been using ATI requests to get at spectrum of internal government texts. At one end of the spectrum, we are seeking what Gary Marx calls “dirty data” produced by policing, national security, and intelligence agencies. Dirty data represent “information which [are] kept secret and whose revelation would be discrediting or costly in terms of various types of sanctioning.” This material can take the form of the quintessential “smoking gun” document, or, more often, a seemingly innocuous trail of records that, upon analysis, can be illuminating. Dirty data are often kept from the public record. At the other end of the disclosure spectrum are those front-stage texts that represent “official discourse,” which are carefully crafted and released to the public according to government messaging campaigns.

scholarly journals Select document: Exchequer malpractice in late medieval Ireland: a petition from Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, 1438

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 407-417
Author(s):  
Malcolm Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record ◽  
Medieval Ireland

Preserved amongst the Chancery masters’ exhibits at the National Archives of the U.K., formerly known as the Public Record Office, is a box of documents concerning the Fleming family, Lords Slane, in Ireland. These papers, dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, relate primarily to a protracted inheritance dispute between the heirs male and heirs general of Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, who died in 1458. This case had been brought into the English Chancery because the family were also landowners in Devon and Cornwall, and it had then rumbled on for decades. Within this box, however, there is also a parchment roll containing a number of entries relating to their Irish lands. The eighth item on this roll is especially interesting.

scholarly journals THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE REID COMMISSION: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ALLIANCE PARTY’S LEADERSHIP

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Mohd Sohaimi Esa ◽  
Irma Wani Othman ◽  
Romzi Ationg ◽  
Mohd Azri Ibrahim ◽  
Sharifah Darmia Sharif Adam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
National Language ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Public Records ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Approach Method ◽  
Independent Commission

By independence, the leader of the Alliance Party has failed to reach a consensus on some controversial issues such as citizenship, the national language, and the special position of the Malays. Such matter was later handed over to an independent commission with the hopes that all races in Malaya will be fairly treated. Subsequently, the British government and the Malay Rulers were agreed to the formation of an independent commission namely the Reid Commission draw up a draft of Independent Malaya’s Constitution in March 1956. By applying a historical approach/method through an analysis of historical documents sought from the Public Records Office, London, and the National Archives of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, this paper discusses the significance of the Alliance Party leadership in the Reid Commission. This paper also discusses the dilemma faced by the Alliance Party leaders in seeking the consensus on the number of issues, including the key characteristics of a nation-state they intended to create after the independence. Moreover, debates between the delegation of the Alliance Party and the Reid Commission have also been given due attention. Accordingly, the study found that the credibility, as well as the tolerance shown by the leaders of the Alliance Party significantly, made the Reid Commission accepts the motion of independence. This is crucial as it was a key to the creation of the Federation of Malaya Constitution that led to the independence of Malaya in 1957.

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