We are pleased to announce that Alison Cullingford, Special Collections Librarian at the University of Bradford, and Jeannette Strickland, Archives and Records Consultant and formerly Head of Art, Archives and Records Management for Unilever plc, have been recruited to the Committee, responsible for overseeing and developing Archive Service Accreditation.
Bruce Jackson, Chair of the Archive Service Accreditation Committee
Our new members join other recruited members, many of whom have served on the Committee since the launch of Archive Service Accreditation. Recruited members have successfully applied to become a Committee member through an open recruitment process advertised across the UK archives sector. Recruited members bring with them considerable expertise and experience of working across the sector, in different services and in a variety of roles.
The Committee also includes members nominated by each member of the UK Archive Service Accreditation Partnership. The Partnership comprises the Archives and Records Association (UK and Ireland), Archives and Records Council Wales, National Records of Scotland, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Scottish Council on Archives, The National Archives, and the Welsh Government through its Museums, Archives and Libraries Wales division. Here again we are pleased to welcome a new member – Gillian Mapstone, Head of Records and Archives Engagement at National Records of Scotland, as their nominee. The combination of nominated and recruited members ensures a broad representation across the archives sector, and ongoing engagement from all our partners.
The Committee meets annually to discuss and make decisions about how the programme is developing and to review progress. They discuss key matters that have arisen around awards of Archive Service Accreditation, such as agreeing precedents and noting any key policy issues. The minutes of the annual meeting are published on our website.
Members of the Committee also form the Accreditation Panels that make the actual award of Archive Service Accreditation. Decisions on the award of Accreditation mean discussion among Panel members and with the assessment team if further clarification is needed. This ensures that tricky issues are teased out, and the award is robust and consistent with the Standard, while taking account of the different types and sizes of applicant services. The Panel also provides a commentary for the archive service as to how they have performed against the standard overall.
All members of the Committee initially serve for a period of three years. With many founder members staying for a second term, this has brought continuity and stability to the programme and consistency of standard during the award of Accreditation.
At some point, members do decide to step down, whether due to a change of role or commitment outside their own organisation, or because they have reached the end of their term. And so finally we’d like to thank the three members who have recently stepped down from the Committee: recruited members Caroline Sampson and Caroline Peach, and previous National Records of Scotland nominee David Brown. Their commitment and contributions as members of the Archive Service Accreditation Committee have done so much to give the programme a good start.
A full list of Committee members is available on our web site.