In her annual report, presented to the States Assembly yesterday (11th), Jersey Heritage’s Director of Archives & Collections Linda Romeril, who leads the team at the Archive, revealed that there had been a ‘significant’ improvement in the identification and flow of information from Government departments, which is required by law.

Linda said: “Archives are a key part of government accountability. The Archive team work closely with each Government department and identify relevant records to be transferred to Jersey Archive through the production of retention schedules. These records reflect the decisions, functions and policies of Government. In 2023, we saw a significant improvement in the review of retention schedules moving from 57% of schedules being up to date at the end of 2022 to 82% by the first few months of 2024.”

However, she said there was still a need to regularly review the schedules, of which there are currently 120 in existence. (Each schedule identifies which official records should be retained as part of the permanent story of the Island.) Her team would also be working with Arms’ Length Organisations (ALOs) to ensure that they complied with the legal requirements to share information, in line with proposed amendments to the Public Records (Jersey) Law 2002, she said.

In the report, Anne Harris, Chair of the Records Advisory Panel (the independent body that oversees the work of Jersey Archive), said: “There has been a noted push in 2023 by <Government> departments, working with the Archivist, getting up to date with their retention schedules…Despite this work and the fact that 82% of schedules are now current, the Panel has noted that there are 18 schedules that are overdue. In some cases, there may be drafts in existence, but they need to be finalised and signed off. The Panel would like this matter to be taken seriously, and in the 2024 report, we hope that we will not see any retention schedules that have fallen behind.”

In addition to the work with Government, the report highlighted that Jersey Archive was named ‘Record Keeping Service of the Year 2023’ after winning a prestigious industry award organised by the Archives & Records Association (ARA).

Other highlights for the year included:

  • Maintenance of full archive accreditation under the National Archives Accreditation Scheme
  • The transfer of 44.6 cubic metres, nearly 3,000 boxes of documents, to the Archive
  • The transfer of over 2,800 digital files to the Archive
  • An audit of machine-readable material in a physical format, eg CDs, cassettes, film and floppy discs – identifying that 10,000 items need to be digitised
  • 51 documents treated either in-house or externally as part of ongoing book binding conservation work
  • 2,800 hours of work contributed by volunteers at Jersey Archive
  • 2,400 members of the public visiting the Archive to carry out in-person research
  • 2,700 inquiries from the public by email and phone dealt with.

The ‘2023 Annual Report on the Work of Jersey Heritage and the Archivist Under the Public Records (Jersey) Law, 2002’ can be viewed in full at https://www.jerseyheritage.org/governance/