Section 11 of the State Records Act 1998 requires each public offices to '...ensure the safe custody and proper preservation of the State's records that it has control of."

The standard covers the storage of records in the control of the public office which have a physical format. Records created and maintained by the contractors on behalf of public offices in the course of outsourced government business, and the storage of State records by service providers on behalf of public offices, are also covered by the standard.

The standard does not cover:

• active records, as these are likely to be created on a digital format and stored in network services or data centres, or the cloud

• storage of digital records on network servers, in data centres, or in the cloud, or the

• storage of State archives.

The standard sets out six principles to assist NSW public offices to make decisions and take action to ensure that the storage of records is effective in protecting records from deterioration and cost efficient. Each principles is explained and followed by minimum compliance requirements and examples of how a public office can demonstrate compliance with the requirement.

Standard No. 13 is available from https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/standard-the-physical-storage-state-records

Standard No. 13 replaces Standard No. 11 Standard on the physical storage of State records (issued March 2012). Copies of Standard No. 11 are available from NSW State Archives and Records.