Off-site Records Storage

During the past 6 months Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council (NULBC) has undertaken an assessment of the physical records (in paper and other formats) that it retains on site at its existing Civic Offices in the Merrial Street buildings. This assessment was designed to inform a planned move to the new Civic Hub complex which is of a much smaller footprint than the existing offices.

The assessment process was to identify physical records to be retained in one of two given alternatives:

• i)"Secure Offsite" - semi current records for which there would be no room at the new Hub complex building but which would need reasonably frequent retrieval ;
• ii)"Archival" - records which it was felt needed to be kept for legal and compliance reasons but which did not need to be consulted, or hardly at all .

In estimating volumes staff used a variety of measures depending on storage used (filing cabinets, shelves, basement racking etc.) but these were translated into an Archive Box equivalent using the standard R-Kive storage box with internal dimensions H 254 mm x W 330 mm x D 381 mm and external dimensions H 260 mm x W 340 mm x L 400 mm.

The Council is now seeking to procure the services of a provider able to store, retrieve and where appropriate manage the disposal of these records on behalf of the authority.