A consortium of organisations is leading efforts to create an accreditation scheme for Archive Services in the UK. This aims to be a standards scheme that drives improvement by externally validating and accrediting achievement. Through a process of co-creation, this scheme is being purpose built to meet the needs of archive services across the sector.

Archives accreditation aims to be open to all services that a meet a wide basic eligibility criteria and to align to the current museums accreditation scheme. It will replace the existing self-assessment scheme (for local government organisations in England and Wales) and dovetail with Public Record Place of Deposit monitoring, Approved Archive status and S60 monitoring (Wales).

This site provides a forum to discuss the proposed model for the accreditation scheme and the contents of the standard which those organisations seeking accreditation will seek to meet. It is divided into a series of changing discussions, held between Feb-May 2012. These discussions will be based around a draft discussion standard which has been created to drive discussion forward. This discussion standard can also be downloaded in full or in headline format. The discussion standard is also available here and as a pdf here.

For further details of the proposed model for the scheme see the workshop presentation

For rules of engagement on this site see the moderation policy tab at the bottom.

Please call back regularly to participate in the changing discussions.

Open discussions are listed below

Past discussions

  1. RSS Feed for 'Eligibility Criterion 5: Staffing ' discussion Eligibility Criterion 5: Staffing

    Here we discuss the requirements of the eligibility criterion relating to staffing.

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  2. RSS Feed for 'Eligibility criterion 3: Access' discussion Eligibility criterion 3: Access

    Here we discuss the eligibility criterion relating to public access.

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  3. RSS Feed for 'Examining the standard 2.2 Collections development policy ' discussion Examining the standard 2.2 Collections development policy

    Section 2 Collections. Here we start to examine the tools utilised in the management of collections.

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  4. RSS Feed for 'Examining the standard - 1.1 Clear Statement of purpose ' discussion Examining the standard - 1.1 Clear Statement of purpose

    This section of the standard discusses the role of the statement of purpose of the archive service

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  5. RSS Feed for 'Building Archives Accreditation' discussion Building Archives Accreditation

    What should the building blocks of an archives accreditation scheme be? Here we examine the elements that will build the scheme, namely standards, levels/ grades, guidance,

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