A little while back I asked the Northern Irish Government about how they keep their files and what they do with them. It was something that I was interesting because it showed how all the other nations keep their files and what they do with them. When I was writing it, i was more than a little interested into seeing what they did with files that came from the troubles of the 60’s to late 90’s, and seeing what I could do with them. The issue is I accidently deleted the file that I wrote on this. So this post is a combination of both.
1) Do you send files to the National Archive in London. if so please can you tell me the time frame you keep files before sending.
2) If the answer to the above question is no, please can you tell me if you have your own national archive which is similar to the one in London
3) The UK government have retention instruments which prevents files being passed to the National Archive in the interests of security. Please can you tell me if you have this power and what is the legal instrument you have which stops files being passed to the national archive. If you do not have this power, please can you tell me who has the power to stop files being placed into the public domain.
Again, as stated in the Scottish post, they do not send their files to the national archive. They instead send their files to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. It is like the national archive, and can be contacted directly. The thing that was interesting to me was the answer to the second part of my request. They didn't hold the information on retention instruments as it was down to the Executive Office. So another FoI was fired off asking them about their files and what instruments they have. Their answer was that they don't have them. They only have the normal stops that the FoIA provides. As a result all files get sent off to the PRONI, regardless. Amazing! Well, this is going to be interesting once I start asking these questions to them
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