The Guardian reports that historians describe “a scandalous act of concealment” underlines the need for a major overhaul of the system for declassification of government papers as public records.
Academics consider legal action to force Foreign Office to release public records, by Ian Cobain, The Guardian (Jan 13, 2014)
Leading historians are calling on the UK’s Foreign Office to “come clean” over its plans for a massive archive of public documents, which it has unlawfully kept hidden for decades, prompting accusations that it has been attempting to manipulate impressions of Britain’s past.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has hoarded 1.2m files – some of them dating back to the 1840s – in breach of the 30-year rule of the Public Records Act, which should have seen them transferred to the National Archive.
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