Annual Report 2003-2004 - National Archives of Scotland

CORPORATE SERVICES
Corporate Services division has responsibility for reader services, finance and administration,
accommodation services, conservation services, and information and communications technology.
Corporate Services has overall responsibility for preparing the NAS Corporate Plan. This sets out
the main objectives, tasks and priorities of the National Archives of Scotland for the next three
years, as well as establishing specific objectives and targets for the current financial year. The
Corporate Plan is used by the Management Board to measure the National Archives of Scotland's
performance and progress and is a basis for justifying the resources allocated to us by the
Scottish Parliament. The Plan also contains useful background information on NAS and the
framework in which we operate. It can be accessed on our website, www.nas.gov.uk.
Finance
In the financial year 2003-04, the gross expenditure of NAS was approximately £11.6 million. To
offset this, we generated income, mainly from fees and charges, of about £720,000. The main
items of expenditure were salaries (c.£3.9million) and accommodation costs (c.£4.5million). The
bulk of accommodation costs were incurred on the on-going major refurbishment programme at
General Register House. The NAS Accounts for the year 2003-04 will be audited by
PricewaterhouseCoopers, under a contractual arrangement with Audit Scotland. The Accounts will
be laid before the Scottish Parliament and a copy placed on our website.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
As part of an on-going programme to improve the business and communications processes within
the office a number of new applications were developed, ranging from electronic resource booking
facilities to a new on-line purchase requisition system. Further applications developments are
planned for the coming months, including a major initiative to develop an integrated ordering
system. Our internal Intranet facility, known as theOracle, continues to play an integral part in the
sharing of information and communicating with colleagues, with statistics showing a substantial
increase in its usage since its introduction in 2002.
We introduced improved ICT facilities for searchers with the installation of new computer terminals
and flat-panel monitor facilities. Searchers using these facilities can access the NAS catalogue (a
trial version of the external catalogue was also made available via the NAS website in summer
2003) and a range of other websites. To reflect the increasing importance of delivering NAS
products and services electronically via the World Wide Web, the ICT branch has established an
on-line resources team whose remit is to supervise and manage the content and development of
NAS, SCAN and related websites.
The ICT branch is continuing to develop the systems and framework necessary to progress a
number of challenging digital access initiatives. We will consult key stakeholders and other
interested partners as part of this process. Steps are also being taken to establish a digital
reprographics unit, which will shortly undertake the task of digitising the sasines as well as
offering a ‘digitisation on request’ service.
Information technology continues to play an increasingly important role in maintaining and
developing the core business functions and services of NAS. The ICT branch, whose primary aim
is to provide a secure, efficient and effective infrastructure for NAS business needs, successfully
completed a major project in autumn 2003 to upgrade our core hardware and software products.
This project, which involved replacing or upgrading all of our server and desktop hardware, will
provide the infrastructure base from which to develop further our ICT systems and processes over
the next few years.
The ICT branch server and desktop upgrade project team (L-R): Julian Garrett (Consultant), Bill Paton (Network
Manager), Keith Dargie (ICT Manager), Stuart Hepburn, Raymond Wright and Pat Mason (Network Administrators).
Hugh Henry MSP announcing plans for the Scottish Family History Service in January 2004.
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