Cabinet Office Homepage
Tessa Stirling, Cabinet Office (Chair)
FCO
SIS
GCHQ
Security Service
Home Office
Ministry of Defence
The National Archives
Professor Peter Hennessy, Queen Mary's
Alan Glennie, Cabinet Office (Secretary)
The Group approved the summary of its previous discussion for publication on the Cabinet Office internet site.
The webpage approved by the Group at its last meeting had been published on the Cabinet Office website on 23 March.
The lists of records released during 2004 would now be published on TNA website but reached by a link from the Group's webpage on the Cabinet Office website. A prototype of the pages as they would eventually appear on TNA website was demonstrated to the Group. There was still work to be done before this could be implemented.
The Group felt that publishing information about newly released records as proposed represented a real step change for researchers and would help to focus minds and save time. However, it was important to ensure the website became and remained a popular and active research tool and the Group would need to consider how best this could be achieved.
At a meeting with postgraduate students from the Mile End Group, Queen Mary's College in May an initiative, similar to the 1992 ‘Waldegrave’ initiative, had been proposed that would allow historians to request the review and release of records on topics they would like to see released and for the review to be undertaken outside the pressures of the 20 day FOI deadline.
The concern was expressed that the effort by departments in dealing with FOI requests could lead to departmental records staff being diverted from dealing with the requests of historians. Proactive disclosure of information was actively encouraged under FOI but realistically departments might be unlikely to be able to deal with the proposed initiative in addition to their other commitments. It would be easier for departments if they were dealing with a common topic and better for the customer if they obtained a block of records relating to a topic rather than just being given, say, FCO records. TNA, following consultations with historians about the topics they would be interested in over the next few years, would be publishing their findings when they become available.
Within the next year or two a new list of topics to form the official history programme list for the next ten year period would need to be drawn up. In addition to the main topics list, the last Cabinet Official Committee on Official Histories had approved the introduction of a new sub series of official histories which were meant to differ from the traditional broad sweep official histories and to concentrate on short, specific subjects. At present there were two sub series histories in preparation: the D Notice System; and the official biography of Sir Desmond Morton. Suggestions as to new topics that could be included in the programme were invited.
The next meeting of the Group would be held on Tuesday, 25 October at 10.00am at St.John's College in Cambridge.
Cabinet Office
17 October 2005