Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

54Volunteers known as Will Flatteners use their time and skills to makearchived wills more accessible to the public through practical storage.Photo: Lancashire County Council Corporate CommunicationsWithin England, MLA has led the creation of a workforcedevelopment strategy for the museums, libraries andarchives sector and this will provide a mechanism forincreased partnership working. The creation of one ormore Sector Skills Councils that will include the needs ofthe archives workforce should also provide additionalapproaches to training and development. Recent researchhas indicated that there is a market for a course inScotland from both potential students and employers.As a result, a new archive course will be launched laterthis year in Scotland. There is currently no archive coursein Northern Ireland.enormous, cutting production times for these documents,finding strays, creating more comprehensive and accurateindexes and preparing the records for microfilming.A huge thank you is due to our volunteers.”Developing the WorkforceThe UK is fortunate to have an advanced professionalarchives domain which is respected and admiredworldwide. However it is clear from the evidence collectedduring our consultation that there are many concernsabout recruitment and retention of staff and developing anappropriate workforce in the future. These concerns arereflected in the research about workforce in the heritagesector and the archives domain, notably the Joint NationalCouncil on Archives/MLA Archives Workforce Study 7 .There can be very little doubt that the creation of a welleducated, diverse, strongly motivated and appropriatelytrained workforce at all levels is essential to theimplementation and achievement of the recommendationsin this report.The need for a training infrastructure for the archives andrecords management workforce is UK-wide althoughcurrent courses exist only in England and Wales. Thedemographics of the future workforce indicate that newpeople, new patterns of working and new ways of trainingand development will be required.Supporting Staff in the WorkplaceWorking together with library colleagues, LincolnshireHeritage Services has implemented a staff trainingprogramme that enables staff to develop in their currentpositions and to move on to higher posts within andoutside the county council. The scheme has been effectivein helping junior staff to gain higher-grade posts in thearchive and museum sectors.The programme includes heritage NVQs and managementtraining at various levels. Formal training is provided in thecontext of a development plan for each individual.Lincolnshire’s NVQ centre (co-ordinated from the countyarchives) is now supported by the East Midlands Hub, anda centre administrator will be appointed to enable it tomove forward at a regional level.Says Stephanie Gilluly, Area Service Manager, Archivesand Conservation, “Whilst valuing the training offered onuniversity courses, we recognise that not everyone hasaccess to university or college-based professionalqualifications. By focusing on staff development and bybasing training in the workplace, we get the benefit ofpeople’s increasing skills, and they have the chance of realcareer progression.” The scheme has the potential toprovide training across the domains, enriching theworkplace experience of staff and enabling more peopleto pursue museum, archive and library careers.