Series details: CRDA/62

The National Archives provides advice and guidance to records managers across central government. This covers the entire life cycle of public records, in whatever format, from creation through to destruction or transfer to the National Archives. This work is undertaken in the National Archives by the Records Management Department.

Records Management Department (RMD) provides advice and guidance to government departments and other public record bodies on the management of records, and their selection and transfer to The National Archives. Members of RMD spend much of their time visiting departments, where they:

• Agree with departments which records should be selected for permanent preservation, and discuss those which should be closed for longer than 30 years and those which can be opened early
• Provide advice on cataloguing and packing documents prior to their transfer to the National Archives.1

The dataset transferred to NDAD contains details of some of the work involved in the accessioning process described above.

The Records Management Department of The National Archives was responsible for the principal tasks in accessioning public records. The Repository staff were responsible for the management of space allocation and the storage of records.

The dataset is derived from a database recording the accessioning actions of Records Management Department staff, and the checking steps involved in that process; and the space allocation actions of Repository Staff. In addition, the database was used for recording work targets, logging stages in the processing of a Lord Chancellor's Instrument (LCI), and contained descriptions of the accession itself.

The Records Accession Register database was used by RMD to manage records transfers from 3 April 2000 onwards; however, the dataset also contains earlier records transfers from 1999. In addition, the database assisted in the management of other related steps in the accessioning process, including space allocation, DRUID cataloguing 2, management of LCIs, and meeting work-related targets.

Accessions using the Records Accessions Register will take place on an annual basis at TNA. It is expected that further accruals, probably in the form of 'snapshots', will be transferred to NDAD.

The Records Accession Registers dataset and related dataset documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the datasets the series reference PRO 40.

The Records Accession Registers 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 Records Accession Registers dataset and related dataset documentation are subject to Crown Copyright.

The Records Accessions Registers dataset is not subject to registration under the Data Protection Act.

The language of the materials is English.

The Records Accession Register dataset was available to staff working in The National Archives on networked PCs.

Microsoft Windows 2000

Standalone application with Microsoft Access 2000 back end and Microsoft Access and VBA front end.

Users accessed the database by means of Microsoft Access forms. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/62/DD/1/1, for written descriptions of the available forms.

The Records Accession Register data transferred to NDAD comprised a single dataset containing 22 tables, although two of these tables contained no data and have not been preserved in the final accession. See the Dataset catalogue for further information.

The data was validated against supporting documentation submitted by government departments along with the transfer. The data was further validated by manually checking the records on their arrival at TNA.

For details of processing work by NDAD, see the sections 'Content validation' and 'Transformation validation' in the dataset catalogue.

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

1. Information on functions of Records Management Department taken from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/recordsmanagement pages at The National Archives website, consulted on 29 May 2004.

2. The DRUID (Departmental Records Users Information Database) was bespoke software, provided by TNA to those departments that found it a convenient tool for managing the process of selecting records for permanent preservation and transferring catalogue information to TNA in electronic form.