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British Postal Museum and Archive: The Royal Mail Archive

Post Office: Contracts Department and contracting functions


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0813 POST 79 Series

Held at: British Postal Museum and Archive: The Royal Mail Archive

Title: Post Office: Contracts Department and contracting functions

Date(s): 1932-1999

Level of description: Series

Extent: 16 volumes

Name of creator(s): Post Office

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Contracts Department was established on 1 April 1941 to take over all the contracting functions previously performed by the Personnel, Engineering and Stores Department. The Department became responsible for making specialised studies of contractual arrangements for the execution of works, the purchase and sale of supplies and for placing the relative contracts. It did not, however, deal with contracts for the transportation of mails, small buildings and local installation works. The department also liaised in respect of all matters pertaining to contracts with other departments of the Post Office and government purchasing departments. These departments existed until the early 1970s, when contracting work was no longer centralised and was instead managed partly by Purchasing and Logistics and partly by individual departments.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

This series consists of annual reports of the Contracts Department, reports, correspondence and papers relating to the organisation, staffing, functions, policy and review of procedure of the Contracts Department and of contracting functions.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

See Scope and Content.

Conditions governing access:

Public Record

Conditions governing reproduction:

Please contact the Archive for further information.

Finding aids:

Please contact the Archive for further information.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Please contact the Archive for further information.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Related material:

See POST 78 for the Supplies Department and POST 77 for the Factories Department

DESCRIPTION NOTES Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: EAD transfer validated May 2011


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Contracting authorities | Organizations
Postal services | Communication industry
Procurement | Public administration | Government

Personal names

Corporate names
Post Office

Places