For the Record - April 2024

Recordkeeping

Records Managers Online Forum – Friday 24 May 2024

Our next Records Managers Online Forum is scheduled for Friday 24 May from 10.00am-11.00am.

This will be a special forum dedicated to the new requirement for public offices to submit transfer plans to Museums of History NSW (MHNSW).

Please see the MHNSW update below for more information and register here to attend.

Satisfaction Survey now closed

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond the Public Office Satisfaction Survey.

The survey aimed to determine the level of satisfaction with the services provided to public offices by both State Records NSW and MHNSW.

While overall satisfaction was rated positively, your responses identified a number of areas for improvement, particularly with how services are delivered online.

We will report on the key findings, and how we are responding to your feedback, in the next edition of For the Record.
 

2024 Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise

Thank you to all the public offices that participated in this year’s Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise. We have received a very good response, with 288 public offices participating this year!

We would like to apologise for the difficulties some public offices experienced with the Service Portal. We are working on a number of enhancements to improve the Service Portal for the next Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise.  

A summary of results of the monitoring exercise will be published on our website and in our Annual Report in the first quarter of 2024-25. The reporting will enable public offices to undertake benchmarking and see how their performance compares with other organisations in the NSW public sector. In this year’s report we will also be publishing a list of organisations that did not make a submission to the Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise.

From July 2024 we will be adding the benchmark average scores into the Service Portal and public offices will be able to access an updated version of their response showing the organisation’s overall score and how this compares with the benchmark average score. Just go to the Assessment module and click “View” for RMAT 2024. Remember to click the “Printable View” button to download a pdf of your organisation’s response.

We will also be sending out a scorecard to each public office that participated in this year’s Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise. We are aiming to issue scorecards by the end of August 2024.

If you have any queries about the Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise, contact us at govrec@staterecords.nsw.gov.au

Building the Archives Policy

The State Records NSW Board has approved a revised policy on Building the Archives – to be published on the State Records NSW website shortly.

The policy sets out the objectives that will guide State Records NSW in carrying out its statutory role to identify State records that have enduring value and should be retained as State archives. Public offices use their subject matter expertise to assist State Records NSW in identifying these records through retention and disposal authorities.

State Records NSW undertook a thorough review of the policy in 2023, including two rounds of consultation with public offices, professional associations, First Nations organisations, users of the State Archives Collection and Museums of History NSW.

The key changes approved by the Board include:

• combining previous objectives 1 and 2 into a new single Objective 1 relating to the ‘authority, actions and accountability of Government and public offices’
• establishing a new Objective 3 relating to ‘significant impact on individuals’
• explicit acknowledgement of impacts on First Nations Peoples and the significance that State archives can have for pain and healing.

Privacy Awareness Week

Privacy Awareness Week is a global campaign that involves both public sector agencies and citizens and aims to improve understanding and awareness of privacy legislation, and to raise awareness of a person’s privacy rights and agency obligations.

Privacy Awareness Week NSW takes place from 6-12 May 2024 and this year’s theme is Privacy and technology: Improving transparency, accountability, and security.

State Records NSW is a proud Champion of Privacy Awareness Week  NSW 2024 and is committed to protecting the privacy of NSW citizens.

The Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) can also help you understand privacy laws in NSW and provide more information regarding privacy at work.

To learn more about Privacy Awareness Week 2024, go to www.ipc.nsw.gov.au/PAW2024

Exposure draft of local government records retention and disposal authority

In October 2023 we sought feedback on an exposure draft of a revised disposal authority for local government and asked for feedback by 15 December 2023.

Thank you to the councils who sent in their feedback. We are now incorporating this into a second draft and are following up with councils who had specific suggestions and questions.

We expect the revised disposal authority will be issued in early 2025.

Please contact us at govrec@staterecords.nsw.gov.au if you have any questions.

Retention and Disposal authorities

The State Records NSW Board recently approved Retention and Disposal Authorities (RDAs) for:

• Children’s, Coroners, District, Drug and Local Courts
• Geographical Names Board.

A listing of approved disposal authorities is available on our website, including a directory of the disposal authorities that can be used by each public office.

Directory of Public Offices with Disposal Authorities

This spreadsheet is available from the Records Retention and Disposal Authorities page and lists each business unit within a portfolio and the disposal authorities that are approved for their use. It is updated whenever a new disposal authority is issued or an existing one amended.

A tab will be added to this spreadsheet in May listing the State archives entries for each current disposal authority. This may assist public offices to prepare their transfer plans. For advice about transfer plans please contact MHNSW at transfer@mhnsw.au.

Museums of History NSW updates

Special forum on transfer plans

Changes to the State Records Act on 1 January 2024 introduced a new requirement for public offices to submit a transfer plan to MHNSW (Part 4 s.32 (4) ). Agencies are asked to provide information about their plans for transferring State records under their control into the NSW State Archives Collection. Only records that are required as State archives in a retention and disposal authority issued by State Records NSW need to be included in the transfer plan.

Advice relating to the transfer plan requirement is now available on the MHNSW website under transfer plans.

Public offices have until 31 December 2024 to submit their transfer plan. The Transfer Plan tool in the online Service Portal Service Portal login is the method for public offices to submit their plan.

The Records Managers Forum to be held on 24 May 2024 will be dedicated to the transfer plan requirements. It will include:

• a demonstration of the tool in the Service Portal, showing users how to submit their initial transfer plan and how to add to or edit it if required
• a question and answer session on transfer plans. You can ask questions during the forum or email questions to us in advance for answering during the session.

Please register here if you would like to attend.

Please email any questions to the Agency Services team via transfer@mhnsw.au.