Using this standard
Overview
This section provides context for the requirements of the standard, explaining the meaning of, and benefits arising from the appraisal and disposal of State records.
What is appraisal?
Appraisal is a process of analysis and decision-making undertaken to determine what records should be created and captured about the organisation's business and how long these records need to be retained. The appraisal process informs the development of requirements for systems to create, capture, and manage records, and the development of disposal authorities.
By undertaking an analysis of business functions and activities of an organisation, recordkeeping requirements are identified. The implementation of these requirements ensures that records required to support business processes and provide evidence of the organisation's business activities are created and captured into recordkeeping systems and maintained for as long as they are required. Appraisal activities, such as functional analysis, are often carried out as part of the design and implementation of recordkeeping systems, business systems and processes to ensure that recordkeeping functionality is built into the systems. This is increasingly important where records are either 'born digital' or digitised and need to be managed appropriately within business systems.
Appraisal primarily involves:
- determining what records should be created and captured to document a business function or activity, and
- determining how long the records should be retained and how they should eventually be disposed of.
This standard focuses on the second aspect of appraisal.
The appraisal decision-making process should be planned, systematic, consistent, transparent and accountable. The result of this process is that appropriate records are created and captured into systems and are retained for as long as they are required. Appraisal decisions relating to the retention and disposal of records should be incorporated into retention and disposal authorities.
One of State Records' functions is to identify and preserve records as State archives. These are records which document the authority and functions of Government, its decision-making processes and the implementation and outcomes of those decisions, including the nature of their influence and effect on communities and individual lives. Criteria for the identification of State archives are listed in Building the Archives: Policy on records appraisal and the identification of State archives. The Policy also explains the roles and responsibilities for State Records and public offices in undertaking appraisal processes and disposal activities.
Benefits of undertaking appraisal
The benefits of undertaking appraisal include:
- understanding the need to create and manage records which document the business activities of the public office
- being aware of and planning for the capture of adequate evidence of the rights, entitlements and obligations of the public office and its clients
- complying with laws and regulations
- developing records management tools such as whole of public office retention and disposal authorities which assist the public office manage records from 'birth to death'
- preserving corporate memory, and
- preserving permanently valuable records for use by the people of New South Wales.
What is disposal?
The process of implementing appraisal decisions is disposal. This can include the physical destruction of hard-copy records, the deletion of records from recordkeeping or business systems, the transfer of records to archival custody (to State Records' repositories) or the transfer of records to private ownership.
Benefits of implementing retention and disposal authorities
The benefits of implementing retention and disposal authorities include:
- managing records effectively, as the organisation knows what records it creates and maintains, how long they need to be kept, and has permission to undertake disposal
- minimising the risks arising from uncertain retention/disposal arrangements
- keeping records that are required as evidence of the organisation's business activities for the appropriate periods of time
- identifying and protecting records that should be retained as State archives
- minimising the cost to organisations from storing time-expired records unnecessarily, and
- ensuring more efficient utilisation of available records storage space.
