DORSET’S joint archives service is expected to suffer another stand-still budget for the coming financial year - a real terms cut.

The Dorchester-based service now employs almost half the staff it had in 2006 while at the same time having more work. It is already one of the cheapest archives to run in the country.

Councillors on the joint archive board have now agreed a stand-still budget of £550,800, the sixth year in a row not to see any real-term growth. This represents a 20.8per cent cut measured against official inflation figures since 2012/13.

Despite the proposed ‘no increase’ budget the service will have to find a 2.75 per cent nationally agreed pay rise for staff in 2020 and a £3,000 increase in business rates. Pay is the biggest revenue cost for the service, expected to rise to £434,600 for 2020-21.

Although the service is a combined one with Dorset Council and the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, the joint board heard that Dorset Council has met all the capital costs associated with the Dorchester, Bridport Road building - including £200,000 of improvement work for the current financial year to improve storage space while at the same time reducing fuel costs by modernising the heating and ventilation system.

A report to the meeting concluded: “The joint archive service provides excellent value for money, generates significant income and delivers high quality work and projects.  Understanding the future scenario for the service is critical to its ability to best plan its future and to assess and prioritise its functions.  Any reduction in budget will necessarily have a direct and measurable negative impact on the service’s ability to meet the demands placed upon, particularly if it moves forward with a large capital project.”

That project is a £1.9m proposed two-storey extension to the rear of the existing archive store which, it is hoped, will be largely funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £1.4m.

But that grant, yet to be agreed, will be dependent on spending £700,000 to improve Dorset History Centre’s public spaces and a £520,000 public engagement programme bringing the total cost to £3.12m.

Sam Johnston, Service Manager for Archives, told the meeting that storage capacity will be reached within 2-3 years and that the service has already had to ask for two significant donations to be put on hold because of issues with space.

He said that although council funding was at a standstill, other income, including from supporters, had enabled many projects to continue – notably archives from the former Herrison Hospital, once the county asylum, and the Frink collection. The service had also been able to make some acquisitions, including a Thomas Hardy letter and records relating to the Portland breakwaters.

Previously discussed options for long-term storage include renting space from a specialist provider although this would ultimately be more expensive and would result in some records being kept out of county.

Discussion on the project are continuing with a report expected to come before the board in the New Year.

The history centre, which houses the county’s joint archives, was built in 1991 with an anticipated 25-year expansion space but the repositories are now approaching their limit. The building capacity has been put at around 45,000 boxes with the service currently receiving around 1,000 boxes of new material each year, a figure which has increased this year with changes in local councils.

If the expansion option at Dorchester can be funded it would provide 25-30 years’ space and would potentially have enough room for all the remaining paper and parchment archives likely to be acquired by the service.

The only viable alternative to the extension would be to look at a private storage supplier to meet future needs. At present the only providers are located in Cheshire and Oxfordshire with an anticipated cost of up to £10 million over 60-years - the expected life of the alternative suggestion of building an extension in Dorchester.