Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

Modernisation and Workforce DevelopmentLincolnshire Heritage Services staff event at Church Farm Museum,collecting memories and copying community photographsThe responsibility for creating and delivering a workforcetraining and development strategy must rest with alldomain stakeholders – employers, higher educationtraining providers and funders, professional bodies andorganisations, and commercial trainers – and must have auser focus. The Task Force recommends that a programmeis established to modernise service management andimprove workforce development opportunities. To supportwork in this area, the Task Force has drafted a TrainingFramework designed to address three key needs: theshortage of applicants with appropriate skills for jobs inarchives and records management; the recognition thatthere is a growing mismatch between the skills requiredand the skills that can be taught by the university archivesschools in the confines of a one-year masters or diplomaprogramme; and the changing skills needed to dealeffectively with documentation and records management.The framework below offers a stratified level approachwhich would permit professional progress.5. Established in 1987, the Film Archive Forum represents all of thepublic sector film and television archives which care for the UK’s movingimage heritage. Hidden Treasures: the UK Audiovisual Archive StrategicFramework will be published in March 20046. Our shared past: An Archival Domesday and Our Shared Past:Developing 21st Century Archive Services (Phases One and Two of amapping survey of English local authority archives), Archival MappingProject Board (Public Record Office), 1997–2001The Archival Mapping Project for Wales (Mapping Surveys of Welsh LocalAuthority Archives Services), Welsh Archival Mapping Project Board,1996–2000An Archival Account of Scotland (A mapping survey of Scottish archives)Archive Services in Scotland Mapping Project Board, 2000The Missing Link (A survey of specialist archive repositories in England)Missing Link Project Board/Society of Archivist, 2002Surveys of Visitors to British Archives, Public Services Quality Group,1998, 1999, 2001, 2002Archives at the Millennium, The Twenty-eighth report of the RoyalCommission on Historical Manuscripts 1991–1999, HistoricalManuscripts Commission, 19997. This study was funded by MLA and conducted by the National Councilon Archives and the University of Sheffield. The aim of the studyis to provide the archives domain with information about key workforceissues and make recommendations for improvements. It is publishedonline as Annex G to the Archives Task Force report. www.mla.gov.uk55• Level A is training designed for and directed at unqualifiedassistants and other clerical members of staff.• Level B encompasses training for those recruits toundergraduate course.• Level C provision at the initial postgraduate level as atpresent, but with the expectation that more flexible modesof study will continue to emerge (such as distance andopen learning and schemes permitting a greater degreeof specialisation).• Level D training is a programme to support continuousprofessional development leading to higher qualification.• Level E training for strategic managers in the sectorprobably leading to a doctoral qualification.The UK is fortunateto have an advancedprofessional archivesdomain which isrespected andadmired worldwide.