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The decisions as the council's minutes record them. A plain-language summary follows once it has been written.
RESOLVED: to note the work of Glamorgan Archives for the period 1st March to 31st May 2025.
RESOLVED THAT: a. Members note the outturn position for 2024/25 as detailed in the report and the draft Statement of Accounts for 2024/25; b. Members note the attached draft Minor Bodies Return 2024/25; c. the Committee Chair be authorised to sign the Minor Bodies Return 2024/25.
Cllr Shimmin proposed Cllr Gwyn John as Chair, with Cllr Birch seconding. Cllr John was duly elected Chair for the municipal year 2025/26. Cllr Jones proposed Cllr Gareth Richards as Chair, with Cllr Cowan seconding. Cllr Richards was duly elected Vice Chair for the municipal year 2025/26.
The membership for the 2025/26 municipal year was noted: Member Local Authority Cllr Jayne Cowan Cardiff Council Cllr Margaret Lewis Cardiff Council Cllr Norma Mackie Cardiff Council Cllr Jon Shimmin Cardiff Council Cllr Rhiannon Birch Vale of Glamorgan Council Cllr Gwyn John Vale of Glamorgan Council Cllr Julian Simmonds Caerphilly County Borough Council Cllr Jill Winslade Caerphilly County Borough Council Cllr Jon-Paul Blundell Bridgend County Borough Council Cllr Elaine Winstanley Bridgend County Borough Council Cllr Gareth Richards Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Cllr Bob Harris Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council Cllr Gareth Jones Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council Cllr Wendy Lewis Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council Cllr Barry Stephens Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council There was also one vacancy from Cardiff Council.
Part of an issue followed across 2 meetings
These were noted. The Archivist added that there had been no changes since last year.
Part of an issue followed across 2 meetings
Apologies were received from Cllr Bob Harris (Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council).
There were none.
The minutes of the meeting held on 14th March 2025 were agreed as a correct record.
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED: to note the work of Glamorgan Archives for the period 1st March to 31st May 2025.
Laura Cotton (Glamorgan Archivist) presented the quarterly report describing the work of Glamorgan Archives for the period 1st March to 31st May 2025, and highlighted a number of key points. Digital preservation work was continuing, and the system was being implemented with the support of Welsh government funding. There were significant demands on the archive sector, which the Welsh government was happy to support, and they would continue to apply for more funding to get the system embedded. Digital preservation was a key priority, and the Archivist noted that a number of pieces of commissioned digitisation work were coming in, and would bring income to the service. The purchase of the digitisation equipment had been intended to enable the service to take on external work and be paid for this. The events that had taken place in the last quarter had been very successful, and she was pleased to report that the last few had sold out, with around 50 people at each talk. They tried to vary the topics covered but attendance remained consistently good. The day school organised by Women’s Archive Wales had also gone well, while school visits from Ely and Caerau had been organised by the council’s Passport To The City team, with 275 pupils visiting in all, and the council covering transport costs. She added that they were looking to venture out further with social media, and had recently started using TikTok and Bluesky. The Archivist added that they had planted a tree on the grass outside the archive building in memory of Harvey Thomas, the assistant archivist who passed away last August. It was hoped that they could add a plaque to it at some point and have a ceremony with his family, and then further develop that piece of land so it looked more attractive. They were continuing conversations with the Vale of Glamorgan’s Democratic Services team about digitally preserving their records, and could use this as a test of the system before further rollout. They were trying to create more regimented forms of transferring documents, and hadn’t previously taken records like this electronically. They were also in conversation with Merthyr Tydfil council regarding records connected to the Aberfan disaster, in the run-up to its 60th anniversary in 2026, as well as with the National Library of Wales. The Archivist had visited the archive in Abercynon which held tip records and discussed digitisation with them. On the topic of grant funding, the Archivist reported that they had submitted two significant applications in the last quarter. One was to the Archives Revealed Cataloguing Fund for the records of the Principality Building Society, which had been a priority for some time, and the other was to the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, which they hadn’t applied to before. The Foundation considered applications related to maritime heritage, and in this case related to the Associated British Ports collection which was in need of some conservation work. The Archivist added that work was continuing through the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, having been underway since January of last year and due to be completed over the summer. It had cost roughly £25k so far and a further phase could cost £15k. Continuing on the topic of funding, the Archivist reported that the National Archives had informed them that their New Burdens payment for the year would be just under £134k, partly because they took in a lot of court records towards the end of 2024. It was the last year of new burdens funding, which helped archives adjust from the 30-year rule to the 20-year rule, and did not attach conditions to the money. There had been a couple of staffing changes, which were relatively rare for the service. Preservation assistant Jane Miller was leaving, and Katie Finn had joined as an archivist, in the role previously occupied by Harvey Thomas. Katie had joined on a 30 hour a week contract but they expected that this would be topped up. New members of staff were doing plenty of training and all employees were doing their end-of-year reviews. The Archivist added her thanks to the volunteers who continued to work on lots of different projects. The Archivist added that they had been successful in receiving a Welsh government grant of around £300k for building work on the archive building, which was now 15 years old and showing signs of it. This funding would help to replace all the lights with LEDs, replace the broken chiller unit, and replace the boilers with heat pumps to use less energy. The £300k was spread over this financial year and the next one. It was a key piece of work which would be worthwhile despite causing some disruption. The new burdens funding also enabled the archive to do a number of key projects, one of which was the fall protection system which anyone working on the roof could attach themselves to. The old system had failed its annual inspection due to corrosion of the metal posts, which made it necessary to replace the whole system. Work on the roof was relatively rare but it was sometimes necessary for someone to go up there to fix the solar panels, drainage or clean the roof, as well as annual inspections. It had cost slightly under £10k to replace the system, and it would last for 15 years. Further building checks had showed some rusting on external metal doors (although not those used by the public) so new ones were being fitted. The Archivist noted that the usual list of appendices had been provided to the report. This included a list of new accessions and notable points, statistics regarding visits, enquiries, website hits and documents produced, statistics regarding events held and social media, ongoing conservation work and the reports of the ARA visitor survey. Rhian Diggins (Senior Archivist) outlined the results of the ARA Survey, which consulted visitors to UK archives in 2024. 80 archives across the UK had taken part, including 15 in Wales, and benchmarking with colleagues across the country showed only a small variation and reflected that Welsh archive services were doing well. The archive had aimed for 90% satisfied or better and achieved this in nearly all areas, with particularly good marks regarding staff and the building itself. She noted that in response to the question of whether visitors’ experiences had improved or gotten worse since their last visit, not one person said it had declined. There were some areas where a 70-80% mark had been achieved and there was room for improvement. She noted a drop in satisfaction with the online catalogue, so they would produce some video guides and look at how information was presented in order to make it easier to search. The speed of computers also been raised, and so purchase of new public access PCs had been programmed in. Visitors had raised concerns about access to WiFi and a lack of charging points, which they weren’t always able to guarantee. The copying service had seen a drop in satisfaction, which she suspected was due to a combination of charges increasing and issues with online payments. The service used the council’s e-payments scheme, and there had been some glitches throughout the year. Overall, she believed that the customer experience was generally a very positive one, and they had identified solutions to issues wherever possible. It was a high-quality public service with lots of ongoing and planned projects, and they were receiving positive feedback from users. RESOLVED: to note the work of Glamorgan Archives for the period 1st March to 31st May 2025.
Part of an issue followed across 2 meetings
Decision as recorded
RESOLVED THAT: a. Members note the outturn position for 2024/25 as detailed in the report and the draft Statement of Accounts for 2024/25; b. Members note the attached draft Minor Bodies Return 2024/25; c. the Committee Chair be authorised to sign the Minor Bodies Return 2024/25.
Members were provided with an overview of the financial position for the year, together with the unaudited draft Audit Wales Minor Bodies Return for the year ended 31st March 2025. Page 3 of the Return, ‘Committee Approval and Certification,’ required completion but the unaudited draft financial statements were presented to the Committee for information only. Jessie Atkinson (Accountant) noted that the report was in two parts: the outturn position and statement of accounts, both appended to the report, and the abridged minor bodies return to Audit Wales. The outturn position followed on from monitoring reports through the year, with £910k in local authority contributions in total shared between the six authorities. The balance of reserves was £173k at the start of the financial year, with an expenditure of £1,189k and £313k contributions leaving a net underspend of £33k, transferred to the general reserve for use in future projects. The Accountant highlighted a number of key points in Appendix 1, which broke down the budget and its performance throughout the year line by line. The employee budget had seen a relatively small underspend of £14k due to brief periods of unfilled vacancies, though they had mostly operated with a full complement of staff. On premises, there had been an underspend of £18k despite continuous repair work throughout the year (though some of it fell within the previous financial year), thanks to an underspend on utility charges of about £36k. They continually reviewed charges with energy services to ensure accuracy. The biggest single charge was the NNDR (non-domestic rates charge) at £200k, which was just over £9k over budget. Some further over- and underspends led to an £18k total underspend. On transport, she noted that there had been a cost of about £3.5k to hire transport to move magistrates’ documents to the archive, which was worth overspending on in the long run. On supplies and services, she noted that the £41k budget had been overspent by £200k, but this was largely due to the grant-funded spend on the Preservica software. Similarly, the £20k overspend on conservation work was covered by the Welsh government’s Crown Cymru grant, and the £123k overspend on software licences was due to the Preservica software costing £125k, which was covered by a grant. Grant income was not normally given significant budget lines due to the prudence principle, as they didn’t have that level of certainty that it was coming in. However, £166,969 had been received from the Welsh government in-year, mostly for Preservica. They had also received a grant for a new cleaning table for conservation items, and another towards the cost of the archive’s corporate apprentice. Other points of interest included the replacement of outdated office equipment like telephones and computer hardware, and support services where the council charged the service for use of professional staff such as accountants. Most areas were broadly in line with the budget, with a few overspends in areas like ICT and HR, and the council recovered costs based on a number of factors. She noted that they had underspent on Internal Audit because the audit for this year would come in 2025/26. In terms of operating income, there had been some variety in over- and underspends. Royalty income was under target, partly due to some late invoices going to Ancestry which had now been received. The hire of specialist rooms was a key income generator, and this was above target at £59k. The service had received a higher amount of interest from the council than expected on the cash balances held within their bank accounts due to timely invoicing and higher interest rates. The overall underspend of £33k had gone into the reserve, which was now at £207k as of 31st March. This was available for draw-down in current or future years should it be needed. £51.5k had been identified for draw-down to cover works, but might not now be necessary due to the higher than expected new burdens funding. On the Audit Wales minor bodies return, she noted that it had already been reviewed and signed off by the council’s Internal Audit office, and signed by Chris Lee in his role as senior financial officer. The Chair thanked the Archivist for the work done in bringing income and grants into the service, which had helped to put it in a stable financial position. He noted the growing costs faced by the archive and the need to keep that income coming in. RESOLVED THAT: a. Members note the outturn position for 2024/25 as detailed in the report and the draft Statement of Accounts for 2024/25; b. Members note the attached draft Minor Bodies Return 2024/25; c. the Committee Chair be authorised to sign the Minor Bodies Return 2024/25.
12th September 2025.
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