Door step guide for forthcoming UK General Election
As a voter in the upcoming UK General Elections advocacy for the recordkeeping sector is now firmly in your hands! (and if you aren’t a UK voter maybe pass this on to someone who is?)
Below are some suggestions of what to ask your candidates on the doorstep or at local hustings. This is the tip of the iceberg and I’m sure many people will have local or specific issues they would also like to raise in regards to recordkeeping.
Asking your candidates about these issues won’t necessarily drive direct action but if sufficient people ask these questions it will be fed back to Party HQs as an ‘issue’ that is becoming important and this might lead party policy teams to start to look at it in more detail. It also opens the possibility of recruiting your next MP as an ally and champion for recordkeeping in the next parliament.
These are some of the questions you could ask:
Public accountability
Ask the candidate:
Will you commit to improving public sector accountability by relooking at the Public Records Act and developing a coherent legislative framework for public sector records – including the NHS and police? (England and Wales)
Will you commit to improving public sector accountability by investing in the vital work of the recordkeeping sector? (All nations)
You can link this question to one of the recent scandals – eg
Given the recent Infected Blood/Windrush/Post Office/COVID-19 inquiries/scandals…
Chairs of all these inquiries have commented on poor record keeping. There has been deliberate destruction of records, records suddenly found after 20 years and produced days before someone is due to give evidence. Legal rulings have decreed that destruction of WhatsApp is all currently legal under legislation as it stands.
You can explain to the candidate:
The vital role that trained professionals play in keeping records safe, accessible and readable so that those seeking justice can access them without delay
The neutral role of archivists and records managers in preserving records and keeping them available for current and future generations
That years of underfunding has left the recordkeeping profession under-resourced and the majority of the recordkeeping profession under paid.
Digital Infrastructure and resources
Ask the candidate:
Digital records are more vulnerable than traditional paper records. Vulnerable to attack from outside agents but also vulnerable to obsolescence and deterioration in ways that paper records are not. Given the exponential increase in the number of digital records now coming through to archives will you commit to investment in digital infrastructure and the trained, professional workforce that supports it in order to ensure that the history of us is available for future historians and those seeking more immediate justice?
You can link this question to:
British Library data attack, inquiries/scandals as above
You can explain to the candidate:
that digital preservation/archiving is complex and requires good records management prior to archiving and that digital preservation means ensuring that records can be retrieved, that they do not suffer deterioration (eg bit-rot) and become unreadable and that they are saved in formats that give them long term accessibility.
that in the public sector, due to decades of underfunding, most record keeping services are under resourced.
the vital role that trained professionals play – this is not a task for an intern or untrained administrator.
Information Rights
Ask the candidate:
Regarding Digital Protection and Digital Information (DPDI)
Will you:
Ensure that the ICO makes use of its full range of enforcement powers and end the failed light-touch regulatory approach experiment,
Reconsider the DPDI Bill should it be taken forward in the next Parliament and
Remove any provisions in any future DPDI Bill that compromise the independence of the ICO or shift its focus away from monitoring and enforcing data protection and privacy regulations,
Remove any provisions in any future DPDI Bill that weaken the definition of personal data.
Revisit any future DPDI Bill to include provisions for AI regulation.
Remove the provisions in any future DPDI Bill that weaken the A.8 human rights regime.
Background on this issue can be found in detail here: https://www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/undoing-40-years-of-progress-on-information-rights
Resources
The Campaign for Records has a number of blogs touching on these topics – you can find there here.