 Hello, my name is Barney Sloan and I'm the National Specialist Services Director at Historic England and Co-Chair of the 21st Century Challenges for Archaeology Programme, along with Peter Hinton of CIFA. I'm also leading the Future of Archaeological Archives Programme and the Heritage Information Access Simplified Programme. I and other Historic England colleagues read with interest the Future for Archaeology manifesto when it was published and provided detailed comments to the society in May 2021. Had we been given the chance, we would have happily offered such comments prior to its publication. We welcome any debate and discussion about the future of archaeology in England. There is always room for more creativity and improvement and no one organisation has a monopoly on good ideas. We understand the key concerns raised in the manifesto about how archaeology works in England to be, inadequate public benefits arising from archaeology, minimal or fragmented provision for specification and monitoring of work, inadequate provision for using archaeological data to create and share knowledge, and almost no provision for curating and making accessible the archive. We noted that the recommendations of the manifesto were, a greater sector collaboration in a planning role, field work, research and dissemination, regional hubs to support local authority services, encourage cross-disciplinarity, foster research and training and promote best practice, and finally the provision of key public benefits in understanding the past, engagement and participation, and promotion of social cohesion and placemaking. Our view of the manifesto is that it does not characterise the current situation fairly, painting perhaps a too darker picture of the issues. Of course there are issues and concerns and they are genuine, but there have also been extraordinary successes and improvements. Our response to the manifesto describes these. We also believe that the suggestion of regional hubs may not work that well as a mechanism for helping to resolve problems which are after all national in scale. We do however agree with the essential need to increase the public value of archaeology and can see the potential for regional national networks to do that. Our response to the manifesto was and is influenced by the considerable number of collaborative initiatives that were already underway to address these concerns and recommendations. Key among these initiatives are the 21st century challenges for archaeology, 21 cap for short, about which more in a moment, HIAS, the Heritage Information Access Simplified, aiming to create a linked national infrastructure of historic environment records and national heritage data sets. The Future for Archaeological Archives programme, which aims to resolve for the long term the crisis in archaeological archives. And finally, measuring, maximising and transforming public benefit from UK government infrastructure investment in archaeology. UK Research Council project led by Dr Sadie Watson at Moeller. The work of these initiatives could easily have been referenced better within the manifesto. 21 cap, with which the Society of Antiquaries is already engaged, offers a specific forum for collaboration on resolving key issues in archaeology and is, Historic England believes, the right place in which to explore the manifesto's concerns. 21 cap has five goals being pursued through several work packages. These goals are as follows. One, to enhance law and policy to improve sustainable management of heritage assets and to increase public benefit from archaeology. Two, improve resourcing and resilience of local authority archaeological advice services. Three, enhance and promote standards and guidance on archaeological practice to increase public benefit. Four, to turn data into knowledge by synthesising discoveries and by sharing research findings in more accessible ways. And five, to sustain the rich legacy created that enables art, science and industry to build on the knowledge dividend of archaeology. The work of Heritage Information Access