Eight days into 2024, and problems once again with records access at National Records of Scotland

I've just learned from a colleague at the Scottish Genealogy Network that there is once again problems with access to some records at the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) "due to safety concerns following a routine inspection".  

So, eight days into the new year, and already, here we go again.

I've said it before many times, Scotland desperately needs a new national archive facility that is fit for purpose. The current set up is nothing short of disgraceful, and people do not go to the repository in Edinburgh to look at pretty buildings, they go to try to carry out research. Belfast and London have superb 21st century national archive repositories, Edinburgh simply does not. 

This is a comparison I made of the three national archives in the UK in 2014 - https://britishgenes.blogspot.com/2014/07/comparing-uks-three-national-archives.html. Whilst there has been some minor progress, the broad thrust of the description and of the NRS's failures largely still stands almost a decade on.

And a reminder of a response from the NRS's Anne Slater nine years ago in January 2015, detailing a response to the NRS's own estates review (see https://britishgenes.blogspot.com/2015/01/national-records-of-scotland-estates.html):

"Our long-term aspiration is to co-locate the majority of our staff in a fit-for-purpose facility in Edinburgh, and to expand and improve our archive and public facilities at Thomas Thomson House in the west of the city. Although there are no immediate plans for NRS to move out of General Register House or New Register House, these buildings do not feature in our core estate over the long-term. This intention remains subject to a number of challenges and constraints, not least funding, and at this stage this is our preferred direction of travel over the long-term, not a hard and fast commitment."

It cannot be emphasised enough that the fact that we have a national archive reeling from one crisis to another, and one service failure to another, is absolutely not a failure of the archivists, who do superb work - it is a failure of the political system in Scotland which merged the GROS and NAS in 2011 to provide a service on the cheap, a subsequent lack of investment, and the recent atrocious leadership at the facility in Edinburgh. According to its website, the NRS still has an Interim Chief Executive, Registrar General and Keeper minding the shop until the position is formally filled, after the previous incumbent, Paul Lowe, resigned in December 2022, not long after the debacle concerning the 2022 census.

The current NRS estate is a worn out relic from the Victorian era.

Scotland needs, and deserves, so much better.

Chris

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