Key achievements 2015-2024
When creating our vision in 2015 we established five ambitious outcomes with statements of that we hoped to achieve by 2025. A summary of what we achieved against those statements is given below.
| Outcome | Achievements |
|---|---|
| Our parent authorities will see the service as having the lead role to play in the county and city, caring for their historically valuable collections, enabling their enjoyment and use by residents and visitors alike, supporting health and wellbeing outcomes. | Both services have raised their profiles within the authorities playing key roles in documenting the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting their volunteers' wellbeing. In 2024 both services moved into new spaces which has improved the care of the collections. |
| The work of the service will be viewed as relevant to a wide range of organisations through joint delivery of projects. | The Staffordshire service has worked with several partners to deliver the Staffordshire History Centre project. In Stoke-on-Trent securing the Minton and Royal Doulton collections has enabled the service to work with partners in the ceramics sector such as V&A Wedgwood. |
| Fundraising by stakeholders has increased significantly. | From 2015 to 2024 the service has raised £6,370,317 in external funding of which £4.8m was the largest for the History Centre from the Heritage Fund. |
| The service is housed in accessible and welcoming buildings. Users are easily able to use collections and share their knowledge. | The service has moved both its Stoke and Stafford public sites to new and substantially refurbished venues. Both are popular with visitors. |
| All collections are stored in compliance with sector standards. | All collections are in new or improved storage facilities. |
| The service is the focus for history and collections have diversified. | The profile of both services has improved so that it is known as the key service for history across the county and city. Both services are working on projects which have led to new collections from diverse communities. |
| The service has increased the number of in person users attending for research, activities and online browsing. | Use of the service of all kinds is five times more increasing from 1,015,911 in 2015/16 to 5,279,591 in 2023/24. |
| The service has built on support amongst local communities and increased membership of friends groups and their involvement in the service. | The service has increased the number of groups that it works with but membership of friends groups has not increased significantly. A critical friends group includes representatives from friends and volunteers. |
| Public awareness of the diverse themes and treasures within the collection has grown. | Through touring exhibitions' across the county and city, and onsite exhibitions awareness of the star items in the collections has grown. The service lends items for exhibition including for international ceramics exhibitions. |
| The service acts as a national focus for sector knowledge working with the National Archives, Arts Council England and the Archives and Record Association. | The service has contributed to numerous case studies and guidance for the sector. Members of the team regularly speak at sector events regionally and nationally. |
| The service supports other museums and organisations which hold objects and archives in their collections to ensure they are secure, accessible and sustainable. | The Staffordshire History Network organised by the service supports over 40 organisations with over 800 subscribers to its newsletter and delivers regular meetings and site visits to support organisations. |
| The service has a presence on key sites beyond its own delivering regular content to users. | There is a new independent website for the joint service as well as content on partner sites such as Find My Past in addition to Past Track. |
| More services are delivered online and more collections are online. | Over 10,000 items have been digitised through the History Centre project and the service will have its own digitisation studio. |
| Born digital archives are properly managed and accessible. | A digital preservation system has been acquired, but implementation stalled due to delivery of two capital projects. Progress is now being made to develop a plan to resource this work. |
