Project to address the long-term preservation of children’s records currently held in ‘line of business’ applications
The Archives and Records Association (ARA) has appointed consultants, Sharon McMeekin and Paul Wheatley of Preserve Together, for a project to address the long-term preservation of children’s records currently held in ‘line of business’ applications
ARA’s Chief Archivists in Local Government Group (CALGG) set up a working group in 2024 to look at work that needed to be done around records of adopted and care experienced people. This work builds on the research of the MIRRA project at University College London (Memory – Identity – Rights in Records – Access) and on the digital preservation reports of Archives First.
The ARA working group now wishes to address the issue of exporting adoption and care records from line of business systems for long-term preservation.
Adoption and care records are held in Line of Business (LOB) relational databases in various organisations, but particularly Local Authorities (who have responsibility for social care) and it is not always easy or possible to extract information for various purposes including subject access requests, details of a child moving from one authority to another or long-term digital preservation.
Because these records will have very long retention periods (from 75 to 150 years) they are at risk every time a new system is procured (up to 10 times during the lifetime of the personal data). These problems are not restricted to children’s records, they also impact adult social care and other ‘line of business’ databases holding records which need to be held beyond the normal lifetime of the database. New applications such as Storyteller, that centre the child in creating records, will also benefit from a set of design recommendations for enabling similar extraction of information to ensure long term digital preservation is built in ‘by design’.
To improve access to these records both now and in the future, it is vital that information professionals should be able to extract archival information packages (AIPs) from line of business systems into secure long-term digital preservation solutions. The appointed consultants, Preserve Together, have been commissioned to draw up a specification to extract children’s records from ‘line of business’ applications, thus beginning to address the long-term preservation of relevant records. It is hoped that this will provide a model for extracting information from other ‘line of business’ systems (the full project brief can be found here). Preserve Together will work with members of the CALGG working party and their colleagues from Dorset, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire and West Sussex local authorities.
Sharon McMeekin, Co-Director of Preserve Together, said:
“Extracting digital records from line of business systems is a significant challenge, but it is one we must face if we are to preserve those records for future access and use. For the records of adopted and care experienced people, finding a solution is imperative given the essential role they can play in shaping identity and acting as a surrogate for shared family histories. We feel honoured to be undertaking this work and look forward to identifying practical and pragmatic solutions that will have relevance to anyone hoping to preserve records currently held in line of business systems.”
John Chambers, Chief Executive of ARA said:
“As chief executive of ARA it is so encouraging to see our members take forward this important work, building on work that CALGG has already completed and on the work of others in the sector. It demonstrates the vital importance of recordkeeping professionals and the work they do.”
The CALGG working group is now also working closely in association with the Information and Records Management Society, Archives and Records Council Wales and includes Dr Julia Feast OBE, an independent social work consultant. It also continues to work with the MIRRA team.
Funding for this project has come from The UK National Archives’ research and innovation fund as well as partner organisations.
Previous and ongoing related work by the group includes:
Developing guidance for record-keepers and care professionals on the records of adopted and care-experienced people.
Guidance on Retention schedules for records of care-experienced and adopted people held by organisations in England and Wales.
Information on both of these reports can be found here.
A partnership between CoramBAAF and the Archives and Records Association (ARA) has been set up to develop a free, easy to navigate online resource that will detail the location of adoption and care records in the UK and signpost to organisations who can support those wishing to access their records. Read more about this here: https://www.archives.org.uk/news/new-platform-to-give-care-experienced-and-adopted-people-better-access-to-their-records
Previous work undertaken by the UK National Archives on preservation of line of business records can be found here.
About Preserve Together
Preserve Together was established in 2025 by Sharon McMeekin and Paul Wheatley with the aim of offering a broad range of training and consultancy services to help organisations and practitioners build capacity and skills for digital preservation. They bring more than 40 years’ experience at prominent organisations, where they have both played leading roles in advancing preservation good practice. Recent projects include an assessment of digital preservation workflows, management of a major repository implementation, contributions to the development of an environmental sustainability framework, and delivery of bespoke training courses on digital preservation.