For the Record - June 2023 | State Records NSW

ISSN 1321-6260
June 2023 - No 159

What’s new?

New Executive Director for State Records NSW

Mary Darwell, Executive Director of State Records NSW, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer Museums of History NSW (MHNSW). Mary hasn’t gone too far, as MHNSW CEO she is also a member of the State Records Authority NSW Board.

Martyn Killion has been appointed Executive Director State Records NSW in the interim, pending further recruitment. Martyn brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, including over 30 years association with the NSW State Archives Collection and extensive government experience in the arts at Arts NSW (now Create NSW) and other cultural institutions.

The NSW Ombudsman recently published a paper on Avoiding pitfalls when agencies and public servants use social media. The paper is part of the Ombudsman’s In Focus series on topical issues impacting NSW public administrative conduct for public servants.

The paper is designed to assist public servants to think about their engagement with social media and to raise issues and risks, including recordkeeping risks, relating to social media. The NSW Ombudsman reminds public servants that social media records are covered by the requirements of the State Records Act 1998 and also provides links to State Records NSW’s guidance on managing social media records (see https://staterecords.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/advice/web-and-social-media ).

Recordkeeping

Regional tour visits five locations across NSW

Following the successful in-person Records Managers Forum at Kingswood in March, State Records NSW together with Museums of History NSW (MHNSW) embarked on a Regional Tour that visited five locations: Newcastle, Bathurst, Lismore, Wollongong, and Broken Hill.

The events provided attendees with an opportunity to learn more about the recent legislative changes, see demonstrations of the Service Portal, ask questions, and network with other local professionals.

Staff of State Records NSW and MHNSW greatly enjoyed engaging face-to-face with people working in records and information management in public offices and to hearing about the amazing things you are doing.

Update on Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise

Thank you once again to all the public offices that participated in this year’s Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise. We are currently preparing the “State of Recordkeeping in NSW Public Sector” report using the results of the monitoring exercise.

This report will be published on our website in first quarter of 2023-2024 and will provide the overall records management maturity score for the jurisdiction and summary level information about the results of each question. The report will also include a list of public offices that did not make a submission to the Recordkeeping Monitoring Exercise.

When we publish the “State of Recordkeeping” Report, we will also update information in the Service Portal which will enable each public office to review their overall maturity score in their 2023 assessment against the overall performance of the jurisdiction of the State Records Act. We will alert public offices to this update in the Service Portal.

For the first time, we are also developing response scorecards for public offices. These scorecards will be benchmarked against whole of government results. The scorecard will be sent out in the first quarter of 2023-2024 to the Chief Executive of the public office.

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

Standards and Policies

Building the Archives

State Records NSW is currently reviewing Building the Archives; a policy on appraisal and the identification of State archives.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted feedback on the current policy. We have received over 175 responses through the survey form as well as feedback through other channels.

Next steps are to review the feedback and draft a revised policy, before publishing the draft policy for further feedback. The consultation draft should be available on our website for comment in July/August.

If you would like more information about this process, please email govrec@staterecords.nsw.gov.au.

International Standards Organisation Update

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) Subcommittee ISO/TC 46/SC 11 – Archives and records management is responsible for standards related to managing records, information and archives.

The Subcommittee works to provide the framework, standards, and guidance for improving practices for managing records. Many records and information practitioners would be familiar with many of the standards that it has developed and published, such as ISO 15489 Records management – Principles and concepts, 16175-1: 2020 Functional Requirements and Associated Guidance for Any Applications that Manage Digital Records, and the ISO 30300 series on management systems for records.

Each year ISO/TC 46/SC 11 meets to discuss and progress the work being undertaken by the Subcommittee. This year Catherine Robinson, Senior Project Officer at State Records NSW, was invited to be part of the Australian delegation to the annual meeting of ISO/TC 46/SC 11. Catherine is an active member of the Standards Australia IT-021 Committee on Records and Document Management Systems and her appointment to the delegation recognises her contributions to archives and record management policy and practice and standardisation.

Catherine is looking forward to incorporating her new understandings into our records management standards and work on improving recordkeeping. State Records NSW, Museums of History NSW, and NSW Government records management will benefit greatly from Catherine’s involvement in this international standards work.

Update on review of Standards

State Records NSW is currently reviewing the Standard on the physical storage of State records and the Standard on records management.

Thank you to all the public offices for submitting feedback on these two standards. We are currently reviewing the feedback received and then will use this feedback to develop new standards. The new draft standards will be provided to all public offices for comment later this year, prior to their submission to the Board of the State Records Authority NSW for approval.

Museums of History NSW news & updates

Access Directions - protect your sensitive records now

We are halfway through the 12-month transition period to prepare for significant changes to access requirements in the State Records Act from 1 January 2024, including:

the Open Access Period being reduced from 30 years to 20 years
State records becoming open to the public by default once they are 20 years old unless otherwise closed through a Closed to Public Access direction.

These changes will apply to all State records – not just those required as State archives or already held in the State Archives Collection.

A significant number of public offices has already renewed or registered access directions to ensure that State records containing sensitive information do not inadvertently become open to public access on 1 January 2024.

Renewals and new registrations of access directions can be completed through the Service Portal operated by Museums of History NSW and State Records NSW. The Service Portal can be reached at the Agency Services webpage here

Help sheets on how to use the access directions tool can also be found on the Agency Services webpage.

All public offices need to have appropriate access directions in place for their records. Taking necessary action now will ensure that there is plenty of time for you to receive any support required from the Agency Services team.

Nearly all public offices have already been contacted directly about preparing for the changes to access. Targeted engagement will continue over the coming months.

Please feel free to contact Museums of History NSW to arrange a further meeting or seek assistance – transfer@mhnsw.au or 02 8805 5337.

Transfer Plan tool testing

Users of the Service Portal will notice that a new function has been added for Transfer Plans. This is a prototype only.

The new legislative requirement for Transfer Plans does not commence until 1 January 2024. Public offices do not need to submit a Transfer Plan before that date. Plans will need to be submitted over the course of 2024.

The prototype tool has been made available to give public offices an indication of the information that Museums of History NSW expects will be needed in a Transfer Plan.

The information required in a Transfer Plan will be prescribed in a new regulation before the end of 2023.

Public offices are invited to try out the new tool and provide any feedback by 31 July to transfer@mhnsw.au

For the Record - June 2023