City of York Council's Leisure and Library chiefs could be asked to revise plans for the future of the city's archives in a bid to make the solution more affordable.

The council's aims to have an archives service that will be a source of learning, interest, inspiration and fun for all sections of the community. However, a recent scrutiny report identified that the current provision would not be adequate to meet the vision in the future.

The council agreed to look at ways that it could provide an archives service for the city with: - robust arrangements for re-housing the city's archives and looking after them in the future - plans to promote access to the collections - have a specialist archivist to care for the city's collections - a board of users to oversee the management of the city's collections - a revamped local history service to provides supported access to the archives

A rigorous procurement process identified three companies offering realistic solutions for the future of the archives.

The tenders were required to show that they could: - provide a building within the city of York to house the archives in - meet national standards for storing archives - manage the whole of the council's current archive collection - provide free access to the collection for York residents - ensure access for the public will not be less than 45 hours per week, including at least two evenings and weekend opening per week - provide a programme of conservation for the collections

The solution offered by The University of York Borthwick Institiute came out of the bidding process with the higest score. Howvere, the annual cost of the Borthwick's tender is considerably more than the current spending on the archives (£120,130) and as such is not affordable.

Members of the council's Executive will be asked at their meeting on 30 January to approve plans to allow leisure chiefs to re-examine the specification for the archives service and report back with alternative options.