Police records: archiving and accountability

In the UK, nearly all records of government are defined by law: as ‘public records’ with a specific statutory status, archived either in the National Archives (TNA) at Kew, in national records offices, or in the relevant local record office. The exception is police records, which have no statutory protection in England and Wales. This is a barrier to police accountability. This Challenge aims to help break that barrier by conducting research into the way that police archives are created, in order to inform better policy on the issue. Working with archivists, police force records managers, senior officers, police and crime commissioners and central stakeholders such as the Home Office to find out what’s currently happening to police records in the UK, in order to make sure that advocates and public bodies have the information that they need in order to make policy in the public interest.