Agenda and minutes

Tabled - Budget Outturn; 2024-2025

The Head of Culture presented a report which sought the approval of the 2025/26 budget for Teesside Archives.  It was explained that the proposal included a 3% pay award for staff, rent increases and a slight reduction in storage costs.

The Local Authority contributions were also presented within the report.

AGREED that the proposed budget for 2025/26 was approved.

The Head of Culture presented an update on the Tees Valley Heritage Feasibility Study.

In February 2024, Focus Consultants 2010 LLP were appointed by the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) as the lead consultants to deliver the development of the Tees Valley heritage sector vision, feasibility study and business plan. In collaboration with the project team, consisting of Purcell Architects, Blue Sail Marketing and archive consultant Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan, Focus reviewed the existing heritage offer and developed a comprehensive, compelling and sustainable heritage vision for the region. This included finding a long-term solution for the Teesside Archives.

To date, significant progress had been made through:

·        Extensive stakeholder engagement across the heritage, culture, and local authority sectors.

·        Thematic analysis identifying emerging themes and priorities

·        Market appraisal to understand current positioning and future opportunities.

·        Visioning workshops to explore ambition, delivery mechanisms, and the role of the archives.

·        Development of emerging options for heritage delivery mechanisms and the future of the Teesside Archives.

The independent assessment of the Teesside Archives service was noted as a professionally run archive service that had significant potential to serve the Tees Valley region given the quality of its collections, the aspirations and knowledge of its staff and the possible opportunities with other heritage and cultural activity in the region. However, it was noted as severely constrained by several serious factors including:

·        A fragmented and disinterested governance and funding environment

·        A lack of suitable and sufficient accommodation in which to serve the public, work effectively, collect and store Teesside’s archival heritage, access collections, generate income.

·        The lack of digital preservation system to assure the survival of Teesside’s modern experience as captured in digital records.

·        A very tight funding environment which constrains all public services.

·        A restricted public service offer, low or no profile with funders and residents, and limited relationships

The report considered the future of the Archives Service; costings, assessments of different building options, case studies and digital preservation.

It was noted that digital preservation was the digital equivalent of an archive function for paper records and was fundamental in ensuring the long-term survival, authenticity and accessibility of digital records through a digital preservation infrastructure and was a key element of Archive Service Accreditation.

Teesside Archives did not have a digital preservation system. A previous bid by Teesside Archives for installation and use of the Preservica system was rejected by the funding boroughs as unaffordable in the long term. In the meantime, the boroughs had no means of ensuring the survival of their records, fulfilling their legal obligations under the Local Government Act 1972 to make proper arrangements with respect to any documents that belonged to or were in the custody Teesside Archives had sought to undertake basic activity such as creating a Digital Asset Register but was unable to undertake more meaningful activity. The Local Authorities needed to invest in a digital preservation system to secure their own records and preserve the modern historical records of the region.

Following the application to remain an Accredited Service, Teesside  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/57

The Head of Culture presented a report to inform the Committee of the interim arrangements of the Teesside Archives Service.

The Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the Teesside Archives Service was extended to 31 March 2025 with agreement from the Joint Archives Committee (JAC), whilst the service awaited the outcomes from the heritage feasibility work which was expected to complete in October/November 2024.

The work had been delayed and it was proposed that the committee agreed to a further one-year extension to the existing Service Level Agreement to 31 March 2026, via a Deed of Variation, to allow time for proposals around the future governance of the service to be considered.

It was noted that previous discussions had taken place in respect of making changes to the existing SLA.  However, as the Joint Archives Committee was an executive function of the Council, changes would require an approval process beyond the authority of the Executive Members of JAC. It was suggested that a reasonable approach was to delay any fundamental changes until the requirements to support a new vision and operating model for Teesside Archives had been achieved.

The current staffing provision for the Teesside Archives Service was provided in the report, equating to 1.2 FTE per Local Authority. Due to the maternity leave of an Archivist which commenced in March 2025, a flexible arrangement had been adopted to increase the hours of the Archive Assistant and Community Engagement Officer as and when required to provide support for the service.

In addition to the existing staffing establishment, the Archives were likely to require a full-time Digital Engagement/Archivist post to work on bringing born digital records into the archives, as well as managing the public-facing digital platforms including the procurement of a new cataloguing system.  Future staffing arrangements would be considered in the context of the new operational model to be agreed by JAC further to receipt of the Heritage Feasibility report and costings.

The Committee were advised that the five-year Restore contract for storage of the Teesside Archives collection would end in July 2026. There was provision to extend the contract up to a maximum of five 12- month periods, however the procurement framework allowed a maximum length contract of seven years in total i.e. to July 2028.

The Committee was advised that it was unlikely to have secured a new Archive facility with on-site storage by July 2026 and therefore the service had begun to explore storage options for an interim period and conversations had begun with other partners locally to assess if there was a desire for shared storage space.   Proposals would be presented to the JAC in October 2025.

Once a direction of travel for the Archives Service had been achieved, the service would discuss potential financial support with prospective funders (e.g. TVCA, National Lottery Heritage Fund).

AGREED that:

·        The information was received and noted.

·        The Service Level Agreement is to be extended to 31 March 2026.

None.