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Freedom of information request

Quantities of all closed and retained documents according to time periods (pre–1900 to 1999)

Freedom of information request reference
CAS-328837
Request resolved

Request

I request that you disclose the quantities of all closed and retained documents, delimited by the following time periods:

  • pre–1900 (i.e. until 31 December 1899)
  • 1900–1909
  • 1910–1919
  • 1920–1929
  • 1930–1939
  • 1940–1949
  • 1950–1959
  • 1960–1969
  • 1970–1979
  • 1980–1989
  • 1990–1999

For the avoidance of doubt, the years noted above refer to the first and last dates in the decade. For example, the ‘1900–1909’ category refers to the period from 1 January 1900 to the 31 December 1909.

Please also delimit the statistics by: a) category (closed or retained); and b) exemption(s) used.

Outcome

Request refused.

Response

I can confirm that The National Archives holds some information relevant to your request.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with this information. We are unable to provide you with the information that you have requested because it is covered by the exemption at section 21 of the FOI Act. Section 21 exempts information if it is already reasonably accessible to the requester.

For further information about why this exemption has been applied, please see the explanatory annex at the end of this page.

The information you have requested is exempt under section 21 of the FOI Act because it is already accessible on The National Archives' online catalogue.

Section 16 – Advice and Assistance

Under section 16 of the Act, public authorities have a duty to provide advice and assistance to help requesters find the information they are seeking.

The Advanced Search function on our catalogue has an option to search by date range. Additionally, selecting 'Search The National Archives' under 'Held By' will allow you to filter results to closed and/or retained under “Record closure status”. You can either review the results manually or export the results as a CSV document. If there are more than 10,000 search results, it is not possible to export to a CSV. One way to reduce the number of results is to use narrower date ranges. Another is to use the Collections filter on the left-hand side. You will need to execute 22 separate searches – 11 (1 per date range) for closed documents and 11 for retained documents.

To view exemptions applied, click on each relevant catalogue entry which lists exemptions towards the end of the record page. Discovery includes information about which exemption applies (for example, ‘Personal information where the applicant is a 3rd party’) where that has been documented. You can view that information in the individual catalogue entries in Discovery but it does not appear in the CSV downloads. Please be aware that information about the exemptions is not available for some closed records. Some records were closed before FOI came into force and remain closed under Lord Chancellor’s Instruments. For retained records, the reason is typically stated as the government department having retained the record ‘under section 3.4’. This means that retention has been approved in line with section 3.4 of the Public Records Act 1958.

Please note that some records are catalogued at 'item level', which is typically when a record is divided into multiple parts, or if it is an extract from a ‘piece’ (typically this occurs when information is redacted from the piece and contained in a closed extract). If the record is a single part this appears as one 'piece'. A record that has multiple orderable ‘items’ will also often be catalogued alongside the piece level catalogue description.

For example, a search for DPP 2/138 will show the piece level description and its two orderable parts, making a total of 3 search hits (the piece level description, DPP 2/138, and the orderable parts DPP 2/138/1 and DPP 2/138/2) for what is in reality only one record.

Please also be aware that retained extracts are typically not listed on Discovery, so the number of retained records listed will not include all extracts retained by departments. In some instances, government bodies have retained extracts from records that were otherwise transferred to The National Archives. These are clearly marked within the records themselves but not noted in Discovery. Please also note that departments are not required to apply for retention or inform The National Archives when a document is retained under the Security and Intelligence Instrument, and therefore we do not always hold information on records retained in this manner.

If you require more accurate information on the number retained records you may wish to consider contacting the relevant government departments.

Annexe

Exemptions applied

Section 21: Information readily available to the applicant by other means

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) does not oblige a public authority to provide information if it is already reasonably accessible by other means.

In this case the exemption applies because the information is already available by searching our catalogue, Discovery.

Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found on the ICO website.

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