The State Records Act provides a number of means to lawfully dispose of State records. Generally this is through the retention and disposal authorities issued by State Records. Another means is in accordance with the normal administrative practice provisions of the Act which allow for the disposal of certain types of facilitative and duplicate records. Please see the State Records Regulation for more information on what constitutes normal administrative practice in a public office.
Under Part 2 of the Act, it is the responsibility of each public office to ensure that policies and procedures for adequate recordkeeping practices and systems are developed and in place throughout the organisation, and that individual officers properly implement these policies and procedures. It is important that normal administrative practices for the disposal of records are implemented in a routine and transparent manner throughout an organisation.
Public offices should produce internal policies and procedures to further define what is meant by and what are acceptable normal administrative practices for their own organisation. For example, the public office will need to clarify how they define 'drafts containing significant or substantial changes or annotations'. In some instances these policies and procedures may need to be business process specific. These policies and procedures should then be circulated to all agency staff so that they are aware of their recordkeeping responsibilities.