Cyber cafe

Seamless flow

Over the next few years, The National Archives will gradually move from an institution whose main medium of operation is paper-based to one which mainly deals in electronic records. We already have a working digital archive, whose records are available through Electronic Records Online on our website

Most government records are now created electronically as a result of the widespread introduction of electronic records management systems. Previous legislation meant that the bulk of records were not transferred until they were 30 years old. However, with the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), 'closed until 30' disappeared in January 2005. We now needed to make arrangements to select and preserve such records as soon as possible after their creation since, unlike paper, they are very vulnerable to corruption and loss.

At the moment, electronic records created in government departments are selected and transferred to The National Archives where they are stored in our digital archive. The process is quite labour intensive. So far, no preservation (as opposed to storage) activities have needed to be undertaken since the records are relatively young.

Over the next few years, we expect that the volume of electronic records transferred to The National Archives will increase dramatically. The only way we can manage this is by automating as many of the processes as possible and ensuring that others (selection, exemption identification, redaction) take place at creation in the government departments or as soon as possible after creation. We will also need the capacity to handle an increased range of document types; video, databases, animations etc. We must have the ability to actively preserve the records, for example to migrate electronic records to new formats as they become obsolete. In addition, we will need to handle the early access changes brought about by the FOI Act, including delivery of electronic records to users over the internet.

We will simply not be able to absorb the increased volume of electronic records by scaling up our existing semi-manual processes. Only a re-engineering of the workflows and a major investment in automation of the processes, as envisaged in the Seamless Flow Programme, will provide a solution.

These pages chart the progress of the individual projects that make up the Seamless Flow Programme. We are committed to updating these pages on a quarterly basis to ensure you are aware of key developments in the Programme.