FCDO archive records
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's archive management teams.
The FCDO’s commitment to transparency
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is committed to increasing public knowledge about its policies and work. We are committed to complying with the Public Records Act and to full transparency with respect to our record holdings.
Read more about the FCDO’s methodology on the selection and transfer of public records to The National Archives.
The FCDO archives
The FCDO paper archive is at Hanslope Park near Milton Keynes and in commercial storage. A smaller proportion of paper archive files is managed centrally in London and East Kilbride. The Archive team is also responsible for FCDO’s archived electronic records.
The FCDO makes a distinction between standard departmental files and non-standard files. Standard files are those created by the former DFID and FCO departments and organised in line with departmental file plans in use at the time. Files which are not organised in this way are categorised as non-standard. The non-standard files are generally older than the standard files and a significant proportion were created by the FCO and DFID’s predecessor departments.
Some archive records are held outside the FCDO’s central archives, in FCDO departments in the UK and at UK embassies and offices abroad. We are working to arrange the transfer of material to the central FCDO Archive for review under the Public Records Act.
The FCDO’s paper file inventory
In line with Section 10.2 of the Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice on the management of records (PDF, 693 KB), the FCDO carries out regular record audits. We publish a snapshot of our paper file inventory on GOV.UK. The FCDO will periodically publish regular updated versions of the archive inventory.
The FCDO paper file inventory is a dataset which helps FCDO staff carry out searches of FCDO records and which informs our record review work under the Public Records Act. The inventory is a working document and is continually updated.
The FCDO’s file release process
The FCDO’s file release process guidance sets out the file review and release process in detail.
The Hong Kong record series
The FCDO holds a collection of approximately 167,500 files in various formats which were created by the British Administration of Hong Kong between 1946 and 1997. The collection is composed of:
- 27,000 files in microfiche format which forms the official historical record of the British administration of Hong Kong. We are currently digitising this collection in advance of preparation for transfer to The National Archives
- 5,500 files in paper format which will be reviewed and transferred alongside the microfiche collection
- 135,000 files in microfilm format covering topics of a local and administrative nature
The collection is categorised as non-standard and therefore is not part of the FCDO’s high-priority transfer programme up to 2027.
Updates to this page
Last updated 12 September 2024 + show all updates
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Added link to new document: FCDO methodology for the selection and transfer of public records to The National Archives, appraisal report.
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Information added on the Hong Kong record series.
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Updated the FCDO Archives section.
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Page reviewed and current
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Page updated.
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Document updated
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Updated
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Updates to the FCO's archive inventory.
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This page was updated on the 31st January.
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Updated timetable.
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Updated information on the Colonial Administration files.
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Data amended to reflect newly available files.
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Update to the Archive inventory.
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First published.