Records are at the core of government business and are valuable assets.

Records:

• drive collaboration and communications

• provide the foundation for sustainable and effective products and services

• support decision-making

• reduce risks

• enable transparency and accountability for government operations

• document rights and entitlements

• make up the corporate memory of an agency

• preserve public knowledge for reference and reuse.

Records can be in any format, and include email, spreadsheets, text messages, data in business systems, web pages, social media content (tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram posts etc.), photographs, CCTV, maps, plans, engineering drawings, paper files, and documents. Most records are in digital format and are stored in network servers or data centres, or in the cloud.

Making records

Departments, agencies, public authorities, State Owned Corporations and other bodies that are defined as a 'public office' under the State Records Act 1998 (‘the Act’) should ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities to make and keep records of their work. This is an important requirement under section 12(1) of the Act. Due to improved business processes, many records are increasingly made as part of a workflow or a digital business process. In other work activities, staff will need to consciously make a record to document a conversation, a meeting, or a decision they have made. They will need to document what was agreed to or decided in the meeting, and what advice, instructions, commitments, recommendations, or information was provided in the meetings or the conversation. These records should be saved into the official records management system of the agency.

Public offices must manage and store records appropriately, and protect records from unauthorised access, alteration, loss or destruction. 

Determining how long to keep records

Public offices should ensure that records remain accessible for as long as they are required and disposed of in accordance with requirements in authorised Retention and Disposal Authorities, or in accordance with normal administrative practice of a public office as described below.

Retention and Disposal Authorities set out how long the different types of records must be kept to meet legal, operational and other requirements, and whether the records are to be kept permanently as State archives. The State Records Authority NSW (State Records NSW) issues Retention and Disposal Authorities under the Act.

General Retention and Disposal Authorities cover records generated by all agencies. Functional Retention and Disposal Authorities are specific to types of functions undertaken by a group of agencies or specific to the core business of an individual agency.

Public offices without a Retention and Disposal Authority must develop one to meet Government requirements. Public offices should contact State Records NSW to discuss the planning and timetabling of this work.

The normal administrative practice provisions of the Act allow for the disposal of certain types of facilitative and duplicate records. See Schedule 2 of the State Records Regulation 2015 for more information on what constitutes normal administrative practice in a public office.

Implementing decisions about records retention and disposal

Public offices should implement Retention and Disposal Authorities as part of their ongoing records management responsibilities. This involves applying the decisions set out in the authorities to records, ensuring that records are destroyed promptly and securely when their retention period has ended, and transferring those records identified as State archives to the State Archives Collection.

Regular and systematic use of Retention and Disposal Authorities will result in benefits to the public office and to Government by:

• reducing the costs of records storage

• reducing the time and cost associated with finding specific records when they are needed

• minimising the risks arising from illegal or unmanaged destruction of records and from inadvertently keeping records that should be destroyed.

Under the State Records Act, records in the open access period are deemed to be open to public access unless the responsible public office has given a closed to public access direction for the records.

Prior to 1 January 2024, the open access period commenced when a record was 30 years old.

From 1 January 2024, for all records, including those required as State archives, the open access period commences when the record is 20 years old, regardless of whether it is currently held by the public office or in the State Archives Collection.

A range of guidance materials and other resources relating to making and disposing of records are available on the State Records NSW website. Guidance relating to access directions is available on the Museums of History NSW website.

Safeguarding the State’s archives

Official records of enduring value are an important part of the State's heritage. These State archives are identified in Retention and Disposal Authorities and must be stored in accordance with standards issued by State Records NSW for records required as State archives. Only a small proportion of a public office’s records are kept as State archives.

Under the Act, records required as State archives, and which are no longer in use for official purposes in the public office, should be routinely transferred to the State Archives Collection. The State Archives Collection is administered under the State Records Act 1998 by Museums of History NSW.  

Public offices should develop transfer plans to identify those records which will be transferred as State archives to the State Archives Collection and forecast when these records will be transferred.

Museums of History NSW operates high quality, purpose-built facilities for storing and preserving the State Archives Collection and, once archives are open to public access, is responsible for making them available to the community. Records transferred to the State Archives Collection remain available to the responsible public office if needed.

Museums of History NSW can provide further information and advice on transferring State archives into the State Archives Collection, transfer plans and access directions.

A range of guidance materials and other resources relating to State archives and transfer plans are available on the Museums of History NSW website.

This Circular applies to all departments, agencies, authorities, State Owned Corporations and other bodies that are defined as a 'public office' under the Act (excluding private organisations which are taken to be a public office under section 8 of the Act). 

Secretary
Premier’s Department