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Volume 300: debated on Friday 14 November 1997

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To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what steps he is taking to ensure that e-mail between and within Government departments is assessed for historical significance and preserved for record purposes. [15166]

The Question concerns a specific operational matter on which the Chief Executive of the Public Record Office is best placed to provide an answer and I have accordingly asked the Chief Executive to reply direct.

Letter from Sarah Tyacke to Mr. Gordon Prentice, dated 14 October 1997:

I have been asked by the Lord Chancellor's Parliamentary Secretary to reply for the Public Record Office to your question about the above.
E-mail created or received by Government Departments is covered by the Public Records Act. Departments are therefore under a statutory duty to make arrangements, under my guidance and supervision, for the selection of those records which ought to be preserved permanently and for their safekeeping.
Since 1995 the Public Record Office, supported by a cross-government Advisory Board, has been running an Electronic Records in Office Systems programme to give leadership across government in the management of electronic records, to ensure that such records of long term value are available for future access.
The programme surveys the current programme of electronic records by Departments and delivers advice and guidance on their management, selection and preservation. Two classes of electronic records have so far been transferred to the Public Record Office as pilots, to develop and test the new procedures required. A strategy has been developed to implement the software products supplied by the IT industry, and, in particular, to encourage products that aid the management and archiving of electronic records.