Series details: CRDA/59

The Public Records Act 1958, s.3(6) states that "Public records which have been rejected as not required for permanent preservation shall be destroyed or, subject, in the case of records for which some person other than the Lord Chancellor is responsible, to the approval of the Lord Chancellor, disposed of in any other way." This permits the National Archives (TNA), with the Lord Chancellor's permission, to donate those records, which would otherwise be destroyed as unworthy of preservation, to recognised academic educational and specialist organisations that have a use for them - subject to decisions as to whether it is considered appropriate for these bodies to retain custody of these records. For example, records may be transferred to outside bodies that are recognised as "places of deposit" for public records under section 4 of the Public Records Act 1958.

The dataset transferred to NDAD contains the details of records donated to other institutions in this way. The Public Records Act 1958 was enacted from 1 January 1959 and donations under s.3(6) began in that year. The details were held in paper files until 1996 when the Access database, transferred to NDAD, was developed. In 1996, data from these files was used to populate the database and donations from 1996 onwards were added directly to the database.

From April 2001 data inputting into the database was terminated when presentation documentation began to be stored in the Trim Captura electronic records management system that was being piloted by the Records Management Department.1

The Archive Inspection Services Unit of The National Archives were responsible for the processing of s.3(6) presentations.

The dataset is derived from a database of public records that were not selected for permanent preservation by the PRO but donated to external academic, educational or specialist organisations. The types of data recorded in the dataset are as follows: the file reference for the original documentation; the creator body (the government department that created the public records to be presented); creator contact name; creator address; type and class of records presented; contact name within the presenting organisation; receiving organisation's name and address; date on which the presentation was formally approved and public access conditions applying to the records after presentation.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset was selected for permanent preservation by the National Archives under TNA Acquisition Policy themes 2.1 Policy and administrative processes of the state and 2.1.6 cultural policy.

There will be no accruals to the Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset as its function has been transferred to a successor system, the Trim Captura electronic records management system.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset and related dataset documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts, 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the dataset and documentation the class reference PRO 72.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset and related dataset documentation are open without restriction. Data is available for browsing on demand by users of NDAD and does not have to be booked in advance.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset and related dataset documentation are Crown Copyright. Copies may be made for private study and research purposes only.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset is not subject to registration under the Data Protection Act.

The language of the materials is English.

The Presentations dataset was available to in the PRO on networked PCs.

Microsoft Windows 2000

Microsoft Access 97

Users accessed the database by means of a Microsoft Access form. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/59/DD/1/2 for a screen capture image of the form.

The Presentations under the Public Records Act dataset comprises a single table containing details of archives presented to other institutions.

The dataset is closed in the sense that once data was entered in to the system it was not altered or overwritten.

From 1959 to 1996 documentation recording the types of public records donated to external organisations was recorded in various paper file series in the PRO. On the creation of this database in 1996 these details were added from the paper files, new entries were added directly to the system using the Access database form2.

Details of the content and transformation validation checks performed by NDAD are recorded in the dataset catalogue.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):

1. TNA online catalogue, PROCAT (http://catalogue.pro.gov.uk), entry for series PRO 72 consulted on 26 March 2004.

2. Dataset documentation catalogue, reference CRDA/59/DD/1/2