ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

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P. Cadell, Financing of archives, Arh. vjesn., god. 42 (1999), str. 93-102 Where there does appear to be some similarity is the proportion of the total funding of an archive service devoted to the broad categories of staffing, accommodation, and other administrative expenses. With modest variation, the cost of staff accounts for around 55% of the total funding available to the archive service. Accommodation comes next, though here again national variations begin to creep in. Until very recently in the National Archives of Scotland we had to pay a notional sum of money as "rent" for the premises we occupied, even though they were mostly owned by the state. Government provided us with the funding to cover this sum of money and we solemnly paid it back to government each year. The idea was to impress upon us (and indeed on other government departments) the value of the premises we occupied, but the essential silliness of this arrangement has now been appreciated and will stop. This change will have the effect of raising the proportion of our funding for staff from just over 40% to around 60%. This latter figure seems a better one, since in geneiaLthe smaller the country the higher the proportion of funding that needs to be spent on staff. Accommodation costs, however, are very difficult to compare from one country to another, partly because of variants in accounting conventions used, and partly because in some - even quite sophisticated - sets of accounts there as no identifiable sum which relates specifically to accommodation. In Sweden buildings cost distinctly more than 50% of staff costs; in Scotland they are now, with the changes I mention, around 42%. But behind all this lies a host of other questions. Does the archive accommodation belong to the state or is it leased; to what extent is depreciation included in the costs; to what extent as the servicing of these buildings - electricity and other services for example - included in the cost of accommodation rather than in those for general expenses etc? Another completely hidden factor is the freedom that the national archivist has to spend the money allocated to him. Theoretically I have complete freedom of action; in practice the two major items of staff and accommodation leave me with very little room for manoeuvre, and even within the limited area of general administrative expenses there are always costs that are fixed outside the organisation - one may economise on electricity, but its price is determined by outside forces. I can choose how many staff I want and at what grade, but in the end the number of staff is limited by a balance between available funding and the performance targets that one is expected to meet. I have confined my remarks so far to a consideration of national archive services. Much the same, however, can be said about local services, except that the variation is more extreme and more obvious. In the UK, and particularly in Scotland, three is little legislation to compel local authorities to set up an archive service. Some have done so, some have not, but services that do exist are almost all, certainly in Scotland, inadequately staffed and accommodated. There is an unwillingness in the 99