PRO Copying Charges

[wellsms]

Out of interest I requested a quote from the PRO for copying an Officers service records.

£10 for the quote! But hey, might come off the final bill I thought. The answer has arrived....

£114 for the copying of 15 pages

The description is 15 A3 mono images (digitally transfered) at £7.60 EACH !!

The reference is known (WO 374 / 21811) so what an I missing?

The researcher I use charged me under £25 for 12 pages of a WW2 Squadron Ops Log and I didn't provide any reference. I considered that good value as I couldn't get to the PRO for £25.

This seems very very poor value to me, unless as I say someone could let me know why I'm wrong

cheers

Mike

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

An A3 page costs 30p if you do it yourself.

Ian

[Bernard_Lewis]

Not used the online service for a while but I too was charged £10 for a quote but then agreed to pay a little more for a copy of an officers file - a lot less than £20 (from memory) and I got about 10 pages. I was happy as he was a chap I'd 'missed' when visiting the PRO and the price was far cheaper than another visit (200 miles each way!)

Bernard

[eviltaxman]

Wellsms,

If I were you, I'd give 'em a ring and ask what was involved. £100+ for for simply copy a few sheets of paper sounds too steep. As Ian said, 30p for A3... what are your's??? Gold plate?

Definately have a word with them, 'cause I think they must have used an imperial calculator not a metric one

Les.

[KONDOA]

Thats good value, I recently paid 233 quid and recieved 3 sheets of paper which I am now trying to trace the rest of it!!!

[wellsms]

One of the Pals has kindly offered to get a copy when he's next there.

Les, I will give them a shout as you suggest, but Drake1066's post suggests it may be right!

cheers

Mike

[eviltaxman]

I'm in the wrong the job

Les

[Dave_59]

Its a con, they are just trying to make money out of people for nothing, 12 pages @ over 100 pounds, what a rip off.

Dave

[Michael]

114 quid! Blimey I'd do it for that and give you the digital camera that I used free.

Mick

[DirtyDick]

Are these the full-time PRO researchers mentioned a couple of months ago?

It is somewhat exthortionate, but if you lived in the distant colonies and wanted to trace a relative (and did not give much thought to hiring a cheaper private researcher) it would still be less hassle and far cheaper than going there in person - though perhaps not if you lived in New York: there's a thought.

Richard

[Dave_59]

Fair enough but it is still a rip off to charge that amount for what they actually do.

Dave

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Are these the full-time PRO researchers mentioned a couple of months ago?

It is somewhat exthortionate, but if you lived in the distant colonies and wanted to trace a relative (and did not give much thought to hiring a cheaper private researcher) it would still be less hassle and far cheaper than going there in person - though perhaps not if you lived in New York: there's a thought.

Richard

No -its the PROs own charges.

[Tom Morgan]

Ah - so it's what our public servants charge us to take away copies of documents which we already own?

Tom

[DirtyDick]

Open government Tom! You wants it, you pay their prices. (Seen how much a passport costs?)

I suspected we would be paying civil servants/govt. sub-contractors that kind of money since they don't need to be competitive (alternatively one could say they are protecting the UK taxpayer by covering their costs - hmmm?).

An interesting analogy about all governments' financial prudency and promises: you pay £5 to cover the cost of a £1 cake you fancy on the Monday; you hear no more and on the Friday they present you with a mouldy loaf of bread and don't have any change.

Richard

[Muerrisch]

If PRO had been charging similarly 20 years ago, I could never have afforded my COMPLETE copy of 2RWF War Diary, and therefore never have written 'Duty Done' or the illustrated version of 'Old Soldiers'. And recently, they refused point blank to give a privileged rate to the RWF museum when it wanted complete copies of medal rolls. The 1914 star took a year's budget. And the 1914-15 star is having to be phased over several financial years. And the BWM and VM are just impossible.

[DirtyDick]

Another example of joined-up government, I suppose.

It does seem rather churlish to charge museums a full rate for such services, but in fairness they have to keep the accountants happy and the chiefs have to show a turnover.

I should imagine the directors wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the precedent set by the Australian and Canadian archives: "Digitised images available to all... being purposefully helpful and philanthropic to the wider community ... free???... I'll need a bigger thesaurus to understand such concepts."

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Ah - so it's what our public servants charge us to take away copies of documents which we already own?

Tom

Tom,

As a public servant, I would like to say in defence that 'we' only enact policy, not define it.

However as we say 'being a civil servant means never having to say you are sorry'

Ian

[Nick Cooper]

Not used the online service for a while but I too was charged £10 for a quote but then agreed to pay a little more for a copy of an officers file - a lot less than £20 (from memory) and I got about 10 pages. I was happy as he was a chap I'd 'missed' when visiting the PRO and the price was far cheaper than another visit (200 miles each way!).

Sadly, this seems to be what the PRO are banking (pun intended) on! I suppose I'm a bit spoilt in that not only do I live in London, but as my Mon-Fri job requires a monthly Zone 1-3 Tube/bus pass, visits to Kew don't actually cost me anything more than my time. Even before I moved down from Leeds, there were always relatives I could stay with for "free," so research trips were not exhorbitantly expensive.

Of course, nobody can expect to pay the same price at a distance as someone who turns up at the counter with the document already marked up ready to copy, but the sort of figures being quoted are firmly in "taking the mickey" territory. Personally, the thought of someone paying over £100 for something that would cost less than £5 if they were there in person is appalling, but I wonder whether these charges are geared more towards "professional" clients with what are assumed to be unlimited budgets. Sadly, Langley's observations are probably more indicative of the reality of the situation.

[eviltaxman]

I recently "purchased" an Australian soldiers WW2 service record from the Aussie Government Archive, all photcopies, but it included photos, medical records - on joining & leaving - medal entitlement plus several other odds 'n sods.... totaling 12 pages. All came wrapped in a nice colour folder..... total cost including P&P from Oz - UK..... £6.50.

'Nuff said.

Les.

[leigh]

I enquired to the Aus archive about a 'family biography' they had on a person I am interested in.

A nice lass mailed me back saying she had dug it out and it was only a few pages and she would copy it and mail it for nout

Regards

Leigh

[steve chilton]

Not only does Oz have hot weather and cold lager it also has about the best online archives I have come across. I recently downloaded 45 pages of documents relating to one of my relatives KIA in WW1, all for free.

Still, at least we beat them at sports these days.....

Regards

Steve Chilton

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

To be fair to the PRO, they deal with more than just WW1 records and medal rolls and their budget has to cover a multitude of subject areas.

Whilst I too envy the systems that the Australian and Canadian Govt's have in place, they have two distinct advantages over the UK records:

1. Fewer of them.

2. No one dropped a bomb on theirs.

There have many improvements over the last year or so at the PRO but unfortunately these are not necessarily apparent unless you visit the visit the place.

Ian

[Tom Morgan]

To be fair to the PRO, they deal with more than just WW1 records and medal rolls and their budget has to cover a multitude of subject areas.

Whilst I too envy the systems that the Australian and Canadian Govt's have in place, they have two distinct advantages over the UK records:

1. Fewer of them.

2. No one dropped a bomb on theirs.

Self defeating argument there, Ian! If they dropped a bomb on ours then there must be fewer of them, too!

Tom

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Not if you look at it from the point that, in WO 363, what actually remains is water and fire damaged and in some cases barely legible and on the whole must be extremely fragile. It is not uncommon to find files out of alpha sequence or mixed in together, but on the whole 'a mammoth task was done well' in sorting it out.

I have come across some files where only a name is visible or just a number or, as in the case of wife's grandfather, two burnt corners of paper with just his number, name an dunit visible.

Don't kid yourself into think that the charred pieces of paper of on the face of it little research value were dicarded or ignored, they were not!

WO 364 is made up of records that were held by other Govt Depts and I suppose this series could easily go on-line. However it is, as always a matter of money, but as I have said the PRO it not just a WW1 Historical Source and there are no doubt other equally worthy projects that require its core funding. We just have to wait our turn.

Ian

[wellsms]

Just to let you all know that Leigh very kindly got me a copy of the papers I was after, thereby saving me a massive £114.

They may not be the world's most exciting, but it's the first Officers services papers I've seen, so are very interesting. Doubley interesting as he is the only officer that I'm aware of in my family. He joined so late - during 1918 - that he never actually did anything or went anywhere and appears to have been very average, but he was in the 2nd Artists Rifles OTC - how romantic does that sound!!

With the world being the rude and uncaring place that it is, it is a delight to be a member of this forum where people are so generous with their time and knowledge

Thanks Leigh

Cheers

Mike