UK Central Government Web Archive

The UK Central Government Web Archive is a selective collection of UK Government websites, archived at regular intervals from August 2003, and developed by the National Archives using the services of the Internet Archive.

Over half of all interaction between the government and the public is now carried out online. For example, the Hutton Inquiry website has been hugely popular, documenting every stage of the proceedings and making them available online. It is therefore important that this historic online information be preserved for future generations.

This new initiative will collect and preserve 50 government websites, including the Hutton Inquiry, 10 Downing Street and the Northern Ireland Office. Sites are being collected as weekly or 6-monthly snapshots, using a specially-modified version of the Internet Archive’s web crawler. The complete archive is being made available on the web and in the National Archives’ public search rooms at Kew. A copy of each snapshot is also being accessioned for long-term preservation by our Digital Preservation Department.