Opportunity to supply digital copies of Court Judgments of the Senior Courts to The National Archives

Tender description

The National Archives would like to invite potential partners to a pre-tender 'Open Engagement Day' on 15 November 2021 at The National Archives, Kew Surrey. If you wish to attend, please email procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk The National Archives is seeking to secure for the nation the historical public record of the decisions of the senior courts by acquiring, through purchase or donation, digital copies of court judgments. The scope includes born digital court judgments (for example those which have been emailed to law reporters or legal publishers by the clerk or judge) and digitised images of the paper records (including from publications) or digital transcripts of judgments. We are looking to acquire digital copies of judgments for both historical and recent cases, from medieval times through to the present day. We are particularly interested in the judgments of the Supreme Court, House of Lords, Court of Appeal, High Court of Justice, and Crown Court. Of most importance are judgments from legally significant cases which have set or affirmed precedents in the law. We are also keen to acquire digital copies of decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to complement the paper records held by The National Archives. We are seeking to acquire copies of court judgments as part of the public record of the courts. We are acting in relation to our powers under the Public Records Act 1958. We will archive the judgments we receive in the public interest. That provides us with the legal basis for processing the personal data in the documents. Where it is appropriate, we intend to publish the judgments, for access free of charge, on The National Archives website. We will strictly adhere to any restriction or condition on publication imposed by the court and we have the means to provide alternative forms of public access from our Kew site. We prefer to receive judgments in XML or the Microsoft Word (docx) format, but we will also accept PDF, plain text, HTML or digitised images. We would welcome, but we do not require, associated metadata, including the court, citation, case reference, date, parties, panel and representatives. We plan to convert the documents to the Legal Document Mark-up language for publication (where appropriate). This opportunity involves the supply of the digital copies of judgments and where applicable a perpetual licence in relation to any rights the supplier might have in the material supplied, to enable preservation and publication by The National Archives. Given judgments are public records subject to Crown copyright, suppliers will need to explain what rights they have acquired in the material they supply. We intend to fully attribute the material made available to the public. Accordingly, it will be important for suppliers to detail the provenance of the digital copies they make available to us.