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   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://catalogue.postalmuseum.org/ ›
Full 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 & 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

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

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