STATES OF JERSEY

PUBLIC RECORDS (JERSEY) LAW 2002: REPORT OF THE JERSEY HERITAGE TRUST AND THE STATES ARCHIVIST DURING 2014

Presented to the States on 28th April 2015

by the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture

STATES GREFFE

2015   Price code: C  R.46

2014 Annual Report on the work of Jersey Heritage and the Archivist under the Public Records (Jersey) Law 2002.

Introduction  

In 2014 Jersey Archive became one of the earliest services and the first outside the UK to be awarded accredited status by The National Archive.

The Accreditation Panel which made the award noted:

[The] Panel felt that this was overall a very strong application, which meets all requirements of the Accreditation Standard – one of only a few to do so in the scheme's history.

They considered that the assessment demonstrated a very well run service, with a clear policy direction and an important role in the public accountability of the government of Jersey.'

The Panel also noted the importance of the role of Jersey Archive and Jersey Heritage in the local community:

The archive service itself and through Jersey Heritage has close links with the local community and good relationships with its stakeholders. It not only collects and preserves the history of the island but offers opportunities to participate in the work of the archive service. Such integration and good relationships contribute to the sustainability of the archive service.'

2014 was also a year in which the archive team focused on records management and in assisting public institutions in their preparation for Freedom of Information legislation.

Under a Service Level Agreement with the Chief Minister's Department Jersey Heritage has an additional temporary resource of 3.5 fte posts (rising to 5.5. fte posts in 2015) to assist public institutions with the appraisal, retention scheduling, transfer and cataloguing of public records.

In 2014, through these additional posts and the hard work of the permanent team at Jersey Archive, 108 new retention schedules for public institutions have been put in place. This is a significant increase on the 11 schedules put in place in 2013.

The team have also managed the transfer, repackaging and cleaning of 24 cubic metres of records, an increase of 60% on the volume of records transferred in 2013. Our cataloguing numbers have also increased by nearly 20% to 8,375 new records catalogued and made available over the course of the year.

These achievements have been made against a background of increased public enquiries, more interaction with volunteers, increased numbers of talks and tours and more involvement with local school and community groups.

If we wish to continue to provide these services to public institutions, the local community and all those who have an interest in Jersey's heritage it is vital that we retain our temporary staff as permanent employees.

Archival Public Records

In 2014, 88 archival collections from public institutions were transferred to the Jersey Archive under the Law. These collections contained over 29,000 individual items which included  a  large  deposit  of  over  12,000  digital  files  from  the  Department  of  the Environment.

All new collections have been accessioned, assessed by the Archive Conservator and placed in the strongrooms at the Jersey Archive to await cataloguing.

Collections transferred in 2014 include records from many of the major departments and public  institutions  including;  Chief  Minister's  Department,  Customs  and  Immigration, Department of the Environment, Transport and Technical Services, States of Jersey Police, Ports of Jersey Health and Social Services, Judicial Greffe, States Greffe and Social Security. Records were also transferred from many of the individual schools.

Survey of the Proposed Airport at St Peter, 1935

Report for St Mary's School, 1903 from the School Log Book

In total 24 cubic meters of records were transferred to Jersey Archive in 2014 compared to 15 cubic metres in 2013. This significant increase reflects the work that Archive staff and public institutions have done in preparation for Freedom of Information Legislation.

Now that the majority of public institutions have retention schedules in place which list the series of records due to come to the Archive we would expect that this increased rate of transfer would continue in the foreseeable future as public institutions act on the recommendations within each schedule.

Additional storage space, both physical and digital will therefore be vital to ensure that Jersey Heritage can continue to meet its obligations in accepting transfers of public records under the Law.

In 2014 initial meetings took place with representatives from Property Holdings and Education Sport and Culture to develop a feasibility study to look into construction of a new strongroom block at the Jersey Archive site.

If transfers continue at the average rate from the past five years the Jersey Archive repository will be full by the beginning of 2019.

Please see appendix A for a full list of public records accessioned in 2014.

Cataloguing and Preservation

The Jersey Archive currently holds over 350,000 records, 65% of which are catalogued and accessible for members of the public to research, subject to a small number of closure periods. The remaining 35% are waiting to be catalogued before they can be made available to the public. In 2014 staff catalogued 8,375 new items.

With current permanent staffing levels and our temporary resource for 2015 this represents a 25.3 year cataloguing backlog (excluding digital material). If our temporary staffing contracts are made permanent at the end of 2015 then the projected backlog drops to 6.3 years as we can depend upon this resource past the end of this year.

If the staffing contracts for cataloguing and records management work are not made permanent then current permanent staff will be required to take on records management and Freedom of Information obligations and the backlog will rise significantly with little or no cataloguing occurring from 2016.

Public records currently held at the Jersey Archive are kept in an environmentally controlled secure strongroom that is monitored for temperature and humidity by the Conservator on a daily basis.

Temperature and humidity data from 2014 has been analysed and compared against the criteria set by PD5454. In general the passive environmental control is able to maintain RH within the ranges set and portable dehumidifiers are switched on manually as the RH approaches 60%. During 2014 there was minimal requirement for dehumidification and RH was controlled quickly and efficiently.

The control of low winter temperatures is now very good and at no point did the temperatures drop below the required 13oC. As the Archive uses a passive system of

environmental control we have no way of controlling high summer temperatures and as in previous years the summer months saw the upper limit of 20oC being exceed in all

strongrooms. Future plans include a review of the performance of the existing passive strongroom block. This review will help us to improve summer conditions and also inform the development of the new strongroom block.

Insect traps are used to monitor for insect activity with approximately 100 traps being located in the 4 strongrooms areas. Traps are checked periodically. To help minimise infestations all new collections are quarantined, inspected and cleaned before they are placed in storage. During 2014 over 400 volumes from 5 different new collections were frozen to help prevent any insect activity.

The Conservator is also responsible for a programme of conservation of badly damaged items. In 2014 using in house resources and an external firm 20 items were conserved.

The archive currently holds 724 records in an unusable condition that are in need of active conservation work and are currently unavailable to members of the public. A single record can consist of one piece of parchment, files of several paper documents or volumes with several hundred pages.  

Each year the Jersey Archive completes a stock take to ensure that public records are located correctly in the strongrooms and that none have been misplaced during the year. In 2014 approximately 40,000 records were checked in stocktaking week and were found to be in their correct locations.

Digital Records

In 2014 300GBs of digital files were transferred to Jersey Archive. The Archive now holds 1,420 folders of digital material that needs to be catalogued. With permanent staff resources this material would add 4 years to the cataloguing backlog, if temporary staff are taken into account 1 year would need to be added.

In 2014 Jersey Heritage has been working with the Information Services section of the Chief Minister's Department to put in place a robust strategy for the long-term storage of digital archival records at Jersey Archive.

A project to continue this work in 2015 has been established but needs both capital and long-term funding to set up and maintain an appropriate digital preservation and storage solution for key archival records from public institutions.

Records Management

Records Management has been a major focus for the archive team in 2014 and Jersey Heritage has made significant steps forward in the production of retention schedules for public institutions.

Retention schedules list all records produced by a public institution and give recommendations for retention of records and eventual disposal either by confidential shredding or to the Jersey Archive. Retention schedules are a vital tool in the correct management and disposal of records and have been a key part of each institution's preparation for Freedom of Information.

At the start of 2014 65 schedules were in place across all public institutions. At the end of 2014 173 schedules had been prepared by Jersey Heritage staff with 140 signed off and 33 in draft format.

This represents 108 new retention schedules which have been created for public institutions by Jersey Heritage in 2014 – over 3 times our original target of 25-30.

Appraisal of records is necessary to identify which should be permanently preserved and which can be securely disposed of. In 2014 staff have appraised 5,423 files and identified those worthy of historic preservation at Jersey Archive.

Records have been appraised from a number of different public authorities including Chief Minister's Department, Transport and Technical Services, Ports of Jersey and the Department of the Environment. Appraisal numbers are nearly three times the original target of 2,000 files per annum.  

Throughout 2014 the archive team have attended a significant number of meetings with representatives from public institutions, given presentations to teams from individual public institutions and responded to emails and phone calls from public authorities for advice.

It should be recognised that the additional funding for 3.5 additional posts to work in these areas has been key in achieving and significantly outperforming our goals.

Equally this high level of performance has only been achieved by the entire archive team of 12 contributing to records management, appraisal, transfer and cataloguing targets.

Records Advisory Panel  

The Records Advisory Panel met on four occasions in 2014. At each meeting the Panel reviewed an overview of the records management work undertaken by archive staff and public institutions. The Panel liaised with the Parish of St Ouen to ensure the transfer of appropriate archival records to the Jersey Archive. The Panel also reviewed and endorsed the Archivist's annual report of 2013.

The Archivist wishes to thank the members of the Records Advisory Panel and all the staff at Jersey Heritage for their support throughout the year.

Closed Records

Under the Public Records Law any information produced by a public institution was closed to public access for 30 years unless it had been previously available, e.g. published reports.

With the implementation of Freedom of Information in January 2015 any archival material transferred from 2015 will automatically be open to public access unless an exemption is applied by the public institution that transferred the records.

Under the Public Records Law the Records Advisory Panel had the ability to approve recommendations from the Archivist for closure periods of longer than 30 years on records of a sensitive nature that were transferred before 2015, e.g. Children's Services or Hospital records.

In 2014 the Archivist reviewed 199 files of public records that, after closure periods of 30, 50, 75 and 100 years, were due to be opened to public access. After review and consultation with the public institutions that created the records the Archivist recommended that 181 files be opened to public access and 18 files should be closed for longer periods of time.

Seventeen of the additional closures were made under Part 5, Article (a) of the Public Records Law – Unwarranted invasion of the privacy of an individual. One closure was made under Part 5, Article (f) of the Public Records Law – Prejudice the prevention, investigation or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the security of any property. The Records Advisory Panel agreed these recommendations at their meeting in December 2014.

Closed records that were opened to the public in January 2015 included the Transportation Register contains a list of all male and female convicts under sentence of transportation in St Helier's Gaol, Jersey. The register dates from 1843 to 1939 and includes some convicts transported to Australia and also latterly individuals who were sent to prisons or reform institutions in the UK.

John Smith alias Carver, aged 27 appears in the transportation register after being convicted of stealing two heifers on 24th October 1844. John is described as being

respectable and the Chaplain believes that his temper and intelligence are good'. John is sentenced to 7 years for his crimes and was transported on the ship Maitland in 1846. John arrived at Port Phillip in Southern Victoria on 27th October 1846.

Marie Le Noble alias Marie Ann Le Noble, 36, wife of Pierre Marie Le Gendre was transported to Van Diemen's Land aboard the ship Elizabeth and Henry' in 1846 for the term of her natural life. The ship, which carried women prisoners only, departed London on 17th September 1846 and arrived in Van Diemen's Land on 4th January 1847, a journey of 109 days.

Marie was accused of committing the crime of murder on Mr George Le Cronier, Centenier of the Parish of St Helier, on 27th February 1846, by stabbing him with a knife

in his abdomen. She was found guilty of manslaughter by the jury and was sentenced to transportation for the term of her natural life.

This was not the first time Marie had been before the courts as she had been imprisoned in April 1837 for a much lesser crime of receiving stolen goods and was reported in the Transportation registers as having run a brothel for several years.

The Transportation register includes the following remarks on Marie whilst she was in the Jersey prison:

She is a person of vengeful disposition as it appears by her confession that she had entertained a rancorous hatred against the Police Officer whom she assassinated..'

Transportation to Australia from Britain officially ended in 1868 and after this date many of those in the register were deported to prisons in the UK.

High profile individuals in the register include Philippe Gosset, aged 55 who, in 1886 was convicted of Embezzlement of public monies and fraudulently disposing of securities left in his custody.' Gosset had been the States Treasurer and had been gambling with States funds for a number of years. His actions contributed to a watershed in Jersey banking which began in April 1886 with the repeal of the article of the Jersey Companies Act which had excluded the banks from limited liability.

Entry for Philippe Gosset, Jersey Transportation Register, 1886

Public Access to Records

In 2014 the Jersey Archive was open to the public on 161 days of the year and 3,394 onsite readers made use of the facilities. The Archive also provides access to public records through its online catalogue and enquiries service. In 2014 staff answered 1,762 written enquiries and there were over 37,000 unique visits to the online catalogue.

The following quotation is taken from the Jersey Archive comments book and shows the enjoyment and connection that individuals feel when using the archive.

What a joy is has been to have been helped to find so much that is relevant by such knowledgeable and delightful people.'

The Jersey Archive resources are used by States Departments, States Members, law firms, construction professionals and by members of the public worldwide. In 2014 enquiries and research visits to the Archive covered areas such as; house history, family history, the German Occupation, court records, vehicle registrations, military history and witchcraft in Jersey.

In 2014 staff talked to school groups from Victoria College Preparatory School, Jersey College for Girls and worked with Les Quennevais Year 8 students on their Identity Project. Talks and tours were also given to local clubs and associations such as the WI.

The  Archive's  Saturday  morning  programme  of  talks,  sponsored  by  Appleby  also continued through the year. The What's Your Street's Story project focused on different areas of the community and encouraged members of the public to learn more about their Island. The programme proved to be extremely popular with nearly 800 people taking advantage of the open Saturdays.

In 2014 What's Your Street's Story was opened up to the community as volunteers were asked to come and help research the Bouley Bay area. A team of dedicated volunteers worked with Archive staff to find out more about the history of the people and buildings of Bouley Bay.

Image of Bouley Bay Hotel

This community approach proved popular and as a result two of our 2015 areas, Havre des Pas and St Aubin's Harbour will be researched with volunteer groups.

In 2014 we also produced the first What's Your Street's Story publication with a grant from the Association of Jersey Charities. As part of our commitment to community development  and  knowledge  copies  of  the  publication  have  been  donated  to  all Secondary Schools and Residential Homes.

Our work with residential homes also includes the provision of reminiscence sessions in which Jersey Heritage staff and volunteers show themed boxes of handling collections and photographs to residents. Residents are encouraged to talk about their memories of different objects such as the tetra pack, events like Liberation and places such as the Inn on the Park.

Volunteers

The  September  2014  report  by  the  All-Party  Parliamentary  Group  on  Wellbeing Economics highlights a link between individual's engagement with culture and the arts and better physical and mental health, community cohesion and a reduction in social isolation.  These  values  are  particularly  evident  in  the  volunteer  schemes  in  place throughout Jersey Heritage and specifically at Jersey Archive.

Volunteers come to the Archive with a variety of backgrounds including students at local schools, retired individuals with specific skills that can benefit the archive, individuals interested in training as heritage professionals and those who see volunteering at the archive as an opportunity to combine a sociable activity with an area in which they have a specific interest.

Jersey  Archive  also  has  an  important  partnership  with  the  Channel  Islands  Family History Society who provide volunteers to assist members of the public with their family history research on each day that the Archive is open.

In 2014 Jersey Archive benefitted from 2,314 individual volunteer hours – the equivalent of 62 weeks of full time work. During the course of the year 28 individuals volunteered at the Archive with a further 31 volunteers helping through the Channel Islands Family History Society.

In 2014 Jersey Archive also ran six volunteer sessions for corporate groups from BNP Paribas  and  Lloyds.  Groups  were  involved  in  repackaging,  scanning  and  indexing documents and over 30 employees from the two institutions attended.

Corporate Volunteers from BNP Paribas working with Archive staff and volunteers, November 2014

Jersey Heritage also works closely with Social Security on their Back to Work initiatives. In 2014 4 individuals worked at the Jersey Archive each on a six month contract as part of  the  Community  Jobs  Fund  scheme.  The  work  undertaken  by  these  individuals focused on community benefit and allowed us to enhance our online catalogue by attaching scanned images of archives.

Conclusion  

2014 was an extremely successful year for Jersey Archive. The National Archive's Accreditation Standard was achieved and records management, cataloguing and public access targets were met and in many cases exceeded.

Through 2014 we built strong working relationships with all public institutions. In 2015 we will continue to work closely with public institutions and the Information Management Team at Chief Ministers Department to ensure that the appropriate archive records from each institution are preserved and made available for current and future generations.

This will only happen if we can continue to assist institutions with the development and review of records management practices and ensure the transfer of both physical and digital material to the Jersey Archive for preservation, cataloguing and public access.

Whilst the Accreditation Panel considered the Jersey Archive submission to be of a high standard they did highlight areas in which the service could continue to improve and develop.

Key areas highlighted included the need to add additional permanent staff, to increase opening hours and to ensure future expansion space by the construction of a new strong room block:

Continue seeking funding to add to permanent staffing complement to support development plans - longer opening hours, digital preservation and developing the work of the archive service to fulfil its potential.'

Continue working with the States of Jersey in developing a new repository in line with current standards.'

In 2015 we need to work with the States of Jersey to ensure that temporary staff are retained as permanent members of the team and strategies and funding for increased physical and digital storage are put in place.

The benefits of this additional investment from 2016 onwards will be felt in public institutions where proper records management and transfer of records to the Archive for cataloguing and storage should create efficiencies.

Most importantly the benefits will be felt throughout the wider community who can engage with their Island's heritage at a personal, tangible level through visiting the archive, viewing our online catalogue or engaging with our community and volunteer programmes.

By investing in Jersey's heritage now we will also ensure that future generations have the same opportunity to appreciate, learn about and enjoy our unique cultural identity as we do.

Linda Romeril, Archives and Collections Director Jersey Heritage

February 2015

Appendix A  

List of Public Records transferred to Jersey Archive in 2014