We welcome your feedback as it helps us to improve what we do and continue to deliver high quality services in line with the Customer Service Excellence standard. You can contact us directly with your feedback.
Comments and requests updated March 2024
| What you said | What we have done |
| A recent visitor informed us that the door to the prayer room near the quiet study area makes a loud noise when closing, disturbing the area. | We quickly inspected the door and were able to tighten the overhead door closer, this resolved the issue and ensured that people studying nearby or using the prayer room would not be disturbed. |
| A number of visitors commented on our restaurant’s closing times, 15:00 and 16:00, and that the seating was sometimes busy. | Our catering supplier listened to the feedback and extended their opening hours to 17:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we have also re-introduced sofas and easy chairs to the café area, increasing overall capacity. |
Compliments
Here are some examples of compliments, which we receive in a number of ways, including email, feedback form and letter, to telephone calls, social media and in person.
| Date received | How received | Summary of compliments |
| 13 March 2024 | We really enjoyed our visit! The exhibition was excellent. My father and grandfather were internees on Isle of Man. Great to have a free cloakroom too. I can’t wait for the talk in June on internment. I shall follow online. Thank you to very helpful member of staff in the book store. | |
| 11 March 2024 | On the last 3 days of Feb. I spent three days in TNA Reading Room and made several mistakes as to protocols, etc. However at each step I met remarkably responsive and skilled staff: reading room and specialised enquiry; a special thought for **** in the bookshop and **** the following day. They are not just book sellers who also flog gadgets and funny cards, they understood what I was looking for and directed me to the right spot in an unique, abundant offer. | |
| 08 March 2024 | Survey | [Following a recent copy order] I have to write back to you to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for sending these through. My family and I have been waiting our whole lives to see a photo of our Grandad/Great Grandad… It’s taken me, his Great Grandson, 16 years of research to track down enough information to find this record and it’s blown us all away to finally see him… This has been our holy grail and it means the absolute world to finally have it! |
Complaints
Here are some examples of complaints, which we receive in a number of ways, including email, feedback form and letter, to telephone calls, social media and in person. Have a look at our Transparency page if you want to know more about complaints.
| Summary of complaint and date received | Background information | Action taken |
| The complainant was dissatisfied at being unable to find a contact number for lost property following a recent visit.
20/02/2024 |
The number for the Quality Manager is available on our website and can be used to direct telephone enquiries to the relevant teams within the organisation. | We took action to change the location of the Quality Manager’s number on the website, and changed the accompanying text to make the number more accessible. |
| The complainant was dissatisfied when their umbrella was lost from our public cloakroom area.
11/12/2023 |
As is common in most publicly accessible buildings, the signage in our cloakroom makes it clear that The National Archives cannot accept any responsibility for loss or damage to items left in the cloakroom. | We said that we were sorry to hear of their experience, and offered to send a replacement umbrella from the TNA gift range as a gesture of goodwill. |
| The complainant was distressed at the presence of a notice reading ‘The naming of a defendant within this catalogue does not imply guilt’ on the catalogue description. This record is a case file of a trial where the defendant was convicted of murder.
06/06/2023 |
This note expresses that people should not assume a particular outcome of the trial purely on the basis of a person’s name being mentioned in a catalogue description. It is not an assertion that guilty people were innocent or not culpable. | We explained the reasoning behind the use of this note and that we would not be removing it from the description, as it would be impossible to make exceptions to its use consistently or fairly. However, we acknowledged that we could and should state the verdict in this case, as mentioned within the physical file itself, and so added the word ‘Convicted’ to this catalogue description. We have previously made similar clarifications to other catalogue entries. The complainant was happy with this action. |
External feedback
Below is a selection of external feedback sites where users can leave independent feedback about our services:
The National Archives on Trip Advisor
Google Reviews