That looks very dramatic, doesn’t it? But I assure you that we have very amicable relations with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and have never had to think about, let alone resort to, violence!
However the relationship is complicated because although we occupy some of the same space – we both deal with information in various ways – we are usually doing different things in that space. Take regulation: ICO regulates our handling of personal data and our performance under FOI, but we regulate their performance under the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that we might find ourselves simultaneously dealing with a complaint against each other – but fortunately that has not yet happened.
I feel rather privileged to be the first person to use our new blog, where people from across The National Archives will post about their work. There’s a wide range of activity that we’re involved in, and I hope this blog will really convey this to everyone we work with. From the incredible variety of our collections, to the challenges of collecting digital records; from the rigour and attention to detail in the legislation we publish to the painstaking work of our collection care department, this is the place to get more of a flavour of what we do.