About the Campaign

The Campaign for Records highlights the need for better records management in public life and calls for more resources, better regulation and improved freedom of information and access to public sector and government records.

Without a robust framework for the collection and preservation of records, the age of dis and mis-information will continue. Accusations of ‘fake-news’, conspiracies and cover-ups will abound and trust in government and democracy will be further undermined. Even in the 2020 Trust in Government survey carried out by the OECD, the UK came 34th out of 41 countries – in the bottom ten just below Brazil and Colombia. Fundamentally there needs to be proper investment into the recordkeeping sector and its work. Over time, we also advocate that a new, comprehensive legislative framework will be needed to ensure that all records (including those in digital format across the public sector (and its partners and contractors) will provide the essential records and evidence that the public need to rebuild and maintain trust in government and diminish the threat to representative democracy. Much of the existing mishmash of legislation governing the collection, preservation and retention of records was framed more than 60 years ago and does not adequately cover digital records.

There are many recent and ongoing cases where a failure of the record-keeping system has led to devastating impacts on ordinary people:

Post Office Accounts Scandal – poor record keeping led both to the original injustice and has hampered the investigations into how that injustice came about.
Infected Blood Inquiry - the medical treatment records of many patients had either disappeared or, in some cases, had “false information” added.

Child Protection - The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) revealed many cases of poor records management or the complete absence of records. A 2018 report revealed that vulnerable children were being put at risk due to record-keeping failings in Wakefield Council’s services.
Windrush – the destruction of landing cards by the Home Office (rather than archiving) meant many people lost the vital evidence they needed to prove their right to stay in the UK.

There are a number of other issues which we will be exploring and highlighting (with the help of others), for example: the role of the ICO and its relationship with Government; whether Police Records should become Public Records or have better regulation retention and access arrangements than currently; how Scotland has already looked at public records legislation to bring it into the 21st Century.

Through guest blogs on our website we will highlight and explore issues relevant to this campaign.

Through this further investigation we will develop recommendations which we will put to the relevant Government departments for consideration.

Find out how you can get involved here

Find out more about the organisers of the campaign here