Our renewal application to The National Archives has been successful.

Archive Service Accreditation defines good practice and agreed standards for archive services across the UK. The Accreditation assessment process considers all aspects of an archive service, including governance, collection care, accessibility, policies and planning, and includes an inspection visit from the assessment panel. Accredited Status is awarded for three years, with a light-touch renewal process for a further three years; services must successfully complete the full-scale application process after 6 years, and that’s what we’ve just done. 

We first achieved Accredited Archive status in 2018, becoming the first retail archive to do so, and have continued to strive for excellence since then. In particular, we’ve developed our capability for managing and preserving born-digital records, to reflect the increasing amount of day-to-day business within M&S that is captured in digital rather than hard copy formats. This work ensures that people in the future will be able to enjoy a full picture of M&S as a retailer, from a collection that comprises analogue and digital material, images, films, merchandise and packaging. 

The Accreditation Panel which made the award: “…congratulated this well managed service that performs well across all areas of delivery and the impressive outreach offer. They noted the demonstrable progress made by the service in the area of digital preservation since the initial award of accreditation.” 

For the Archive team, the Accreditation framework and application process is a great way to benchmark the services we provide to customers, helping us to keep up to date with best practice in the archive sector. Accredited Archive status also reflects the commitment that M&S makes to preserving and celebrating its brand heritage, and demonstrates to donors that vintage items gifted to the Archive as additions for the collection receive the best possible care. 

To find out more about how we do things, see https://archive.marksandspencer.com/about/archive-policies/  

For more information about the Accreditation scheme, see https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/archive-service-accreditation/