Papers of the Royal Institute of Public Administration

The files relate mainly to activity files from the 1970s and 1980s and Council, Board, and Committee files dating from the Institute' foundation. Comprising: projects and activities; correspondence from 1970; minute books, 1923-1931; minutes of the Library Committee, 1945-1948; membership book, 1945-1948; minutes of Finance and General Purpose Committee, 1979-1981; Management Committee, 1977-1978; membership, 1978-1983; government of RIPA; accommodation; services (publications, libraries etc); international services; relations with other bodies in the United Kingdom and overseas;papers relating to the history of RIPA.

The Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) , founded in 1922, was a leading independent British organisation dealing with policy making and management in the public sector until it went into receivership in 1992. The aim of the organisation was to help improve the effectiveness of public administration and to increase public understanding of its scope and processes in the United Kingdom and overseas. RIPA dealt with the entire public sector: the legislature, central and local government, publicly funded health services, public corporations, non-departmental and other statutory public bodies, considering how they interacted with each other and with industry

Ivor Shelley who worked for the Institute for 33 years, including as Director of its United Kingdom Division, 1972-92) has written a number of articles about RIPA. One of these, in the University of Birmingham, Research Libraries Bulletin, No 2, Autumn 1994 includes a history of RIPA and information about the scope and content of the archive. Other articles include: 'What happened to the RIPA, Public Administration', , University of Birmingham, Research Libraries Bulletin, Volume 71, No. 4 (Winter 1993), pp. 471-489; and 'The demise of RIPA - seventy years on', Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 52, No. 4 (December 1993) pp. 475-482.

Reference: Deposit information.

Open. Access to all registered researchers.

This collection was purchased from the Institute in 1991.

A temporary list is available on request in the Special Collections Department.

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the University Archivist, Special Collections. Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Further deposits are not expected.