Management and accountability

Corporate governance

The National Archives is a budget funded Executive Agency within the Communications, Information Technology and the Arts portfolio. The Archives was established as an Executive Agency by order of the Governor-General under section 65 of the Public Service Act 1999 with effect from 28 February 2001. The Minister for the Arts and Sport has portfolio responsibility for the Archives.

The Archives has offices in Canberra, all State capitals and Darwin. A list of addresses and contacts is at Appendix B.

The Head of the Executive Agency is the Director-General, a position established under the Archives Act 1983. The Director-General and four Assistant Directors-General, each responsible for a branch of the Archives, form the Executive, which is responsible for the overall management of the organisation. The members of the Executive at 30 June 2002 were:

• Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, Acting Director-General
• Ms Kathryn Dan, Assistant Director-General, Government Recordkeeping
• Ms Gabrielle Hyslop, Acting Assistant Director-General, Public and Reader Services
• Mr Peter Meadley, Acting Assistant Director-General, Corporate
• Mr Steve Stuckey, Assistant Director-General, Collection Management

Ms Schwirtlich has been Acting Director-General pending appointment to the position.

A Director heads each office of the Archives outside Canberra and has responsibility for the effective management of the Archives and the implementation of national work programs at the State level.

An organisation chart for the National Archives, current at 30 June 2002, follows.

Figure 1 – National Archives of Australia organisation chart as at 30 June 2002

The National Archives of Australia Advisory Council is established under the Archives Act to furnish advice to the Minister and the Director-General. The Annual Report of the Council is included in this publication.

Within a planning and reporting framework each section and office prepares annual work plans and makes quarterly and half yearly reports to the Executive against performance measures. From these reports flow the outcomes and outputs reporting for the Annual Report.

Review of corporate governance

In September 2001 the Archives' internal auditors, KPMG, delivered a report on its review of the Archives' corporate governance. In light of this report, the Archives has instituted a fraud risk assessment and updated the Fraud Control Plan. In addition, the Archives has reviewed membership of its Audit Committee and reviewed its induction course content, particularly as it relates to finance officers, in order to follow current best practice. The overall conclusion of the report was that the Archives had established a sound corporate governance framework.

National Archives of Australia Audit Committee

The objectives of the National Archives Audit Committee are to enhance the Archives' control framework, improve the objectivity and reliability of externally published financial information, and assist the Archives to comply with all legislative and other obligations. The Audit Committee consists of:

• Director-General, Chair;
• Assistant Director-General, Corporate;
• a State Director, presently Director, Adelaide Office;
• Director, Finance;
• an observer from the Australian National Audit Office; and
• an observer from KPMG, the Archives' internal audit service provider.

Observers from ANAO and KPMG participate fully in discussion. One other Director or Assistant Director-General will join the committee when the membership is next reviewed.

The committee is responsible for overseeing and reviewing arrangements for controls and operations generally, and for recommending and proposing action.

To exercise this responsibility, the committee:

• reviews, critiques, monitors and reports on the Archives' internal and external audit plans, strategies, reports and recommendations;
• reviews and evaluates the Archives' responses to audit reports;
• reviews and evaluates risk management strategies and fraud control plans;
• monitors legislative change, government policy and other regulations in terms of their possible impact on the Archives;
• evaluates internal management and accounting controls;
• reviews accounting policies and disclosures in the annual financial statements; and
• reports on compliance breaches.

In 2001–02, the committee met on 10 August 2001, 21 September 2001, 11 December 2001 and 3 May 2002.

Internal audit and risk management

KPMG is contracted to provide internal audit functions, including risk assessment. The Archives exercised an option to renew the internal audit contract for a further year commencing July 2002.

In March 2001, the Archives submitted its Risk Management Plan to Comcover, and in April 2001, the Acting Director-General signed the Archives Risk Management Policy. The Archives deals with manageable risk by adopting procedures as outlined in its Risk Management Plan.

An initial step was the formation of an organisational Risk Management Steering Committee. The committee met on 23 January and 18 April 2002. A full-day risk management workshop was held on 16 May 2002. The committee's main roles are to promote risk awareness, undertake risk awareness and management training, oversee the specific treatment of high and medium level risk exposures, and monitor and review organisational risk management. The committee will meet quarterly, or more often if the need arises.

The Archives has transferred non-manageable risk to insurance providers Comcover and Comcare. Senior staff exercise risk management as appropriate.

In 2002–03, the Archives will commence a process to review, coordinate and integrate its Business Continuity Framework, which incorporates Risk Management, Disaster Preparedness, Fraud Control, Emergency Response and Business Recovery Plans.

Financial performance

The Archives had a healthy financial position as at 30 June 2002 and was able to meet all liabilities as they fell due.

A table showing the total resourcing for its outcome is at Appendix C.

Payment of accounts

The Archives processed 11 705 accounts for payment in 2001–02. Arrangements were made for these accounts to be paid by the due date.

Purchasing

The Archives complies with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines in its purchasing practices. It endeavours to achieve value for money through open and effective competition by seeking multiple written quotes for all purchases over $2 000. All purchases over $2 000 are reported by gazettal.

During 2001–02, 532 purchases over $2 000 were gazetted. Of these, 32 were gazetted more than six weeks after the date of purchase.

The Archives engaged in training and in-house systems development to enable e-procurement by the target date of 31 December 2001. Over 70 per cent of payments were made by electronic means from December 2001.

In 2001–02 the Archives engaged 79 consultants, while a further 23 engaged in previous years were still under contract. Included in this total are four market research contracts. Details of consultancies are at Appendix D.

The Archives continues to investigate opportunities for contracting out services where it is cost effective to do so and consistent with the Archives' strategies. Market testing of services is based on the 'full costing framework' where all direct and indirect costs are identified and allocated. The Archives will continue to market test services as further benchmarking data becomes available.

Discretionary grants

Community Heritage Grants

In 2001 the Archives joined with the National Library of Australia and the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts to fund the Community Heritage Grants scheme. The scheme provides funding to small archives, museums and galleries to allow them to preserve their collections and make them publicly accessible.

In 2001 the Archives contributed $40 000 towards total grants of $160 990. There were 199 applications for grants, of which 45 were successful. Grant winners are listed on the National Library of Australia website at www.nla.gov.au/chg.

Internal and external scrutiny

Reports from the Australian National Audit Office

An interim audit was conducted during the preparation of the Archives' Financial Statements 2001–02 Audit. A number of issues were addressed at the interim audit stage. The timeliness of performing reconciliations for the bank account and between the financial management information system and the human resource management system is being reviewed. The requirement to obtain timely approvals for asset disposal has been enforced. Outstanding debts are being reviewed to determine the need to make provision for doubtful debts. The Archives developed accrual-based financial reports for all levels of management, and these have been used since 1 July 2001.

Human resources

There were no requests for external review of any human resources actions in 2001–02. No grievances were referred to the Merit Protection and Review Agency, and there were no appeals to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Senate Community Affairs References Committee Report on Child Migration

On 20 June 2000, the Senate, on the motion of Senator Andrew Murray, referred the issue of child migration to the Community Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report. The Archives was asked by the committee to comment on several issues. The committee's report, Lost Innocents – Righting the Record – Report on Child Migration, was tabled in Parliament in August 2001. The report makes 33 broad-ranging recommendations. The Archives will contribute responses to recommendations relating to measures facilitating the preservation of and access to archival records of child migrants to facilitate the preparation of the Government's response.

Freedom of Information

The Archives received no applications for information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 during 2001–02.

The Archives continued to provide agencies with Information Access Office facilities in all its offices in accordance with section 28 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act). The facilities include making available section 9 statements submitted by agencies in accordance with the FOI Act. The Archives enhanced access to these statements by making a register available on its website in February 2002.

All agencies have been encouraged to submit their section 9 statements electronically, and all electronic statements are also made available on the site. Statements not available online can be ordered via email. The register is updated monthly and is at naa.gov.au/about_us/organisation_staff/foi_section9.html.

The Archives' FOI section 8 statement is at Appendix E.

Privacy Commissioner

There were no complaints to, or reports or determinations by, the Privacy Commissioner about Archives' activities during 2001–02.

Commonwealth Ombudsman

The Defence Force Ombudsman wrote to the Archives in May 2002 advising that a complaint about the interpretation of the access provisions of the Archives Act 1983 in relation to Commonwealth records held at the Australian War Memorial had been received and asking for our comments. The Archives confirmed the Memorial's interpretation of the Act and argued strongly that the access provisions of the Archives Act are robust and appropriate. The Archives and the War Memorial consider that the guidelines for interpreting the legislation and the review mechanisms in place afford adequate privacy protection to individuals. The Ombudsman responded on 28 June 2002 that no formal recommendations would be made, and no further investigation on the complaint was required.

Service charter

The National Archives Service Charter sets out the standards of service people can expect from the Archives and what they can do if these standards are not met. The charter applies to services the Archives provide to the public in the areas of archival research. These include file retrieval, reference assistance, copying, publications, websites and exhibitions.

The Service Charter was reviewed during 2001–02. Comments were sought from other archival and cultural institutions, genealogical and historical societies, researchers and visitors. Seventy-two public responses were received. Feedback indicated that the public were satisfied with the standards of service, with the content and language of the charter, and with the complaint procedures.

Only minor changes to the wording of some existing standards resulted from the review. The charter was expanded to incorporate publications, exhibitions, events and digitisation services, and to include an undertaking to make exhibitions and reading rooms accessible to people with physical disabilities. The complaints process was improved by establishing a dedicated email address, yourcomments@naa.gov.au, and mechanisms for monitoring, responding and recording complaints and suggestions. These mechanisms include providing an online client survey about our services on the Archives website.

The revised Service Charter was issued in June 2002. It will be reviewed again in June 2004. The Service Charter is available from all National Archives offices and on the Archives website at naa.gov.au/about_us/service_charter/service_charter.html.

Performance against the Service Charter standards

The following shows how the Archives performed in meeting the quantifiable standards in the Service Charter in 2001–02. It uses the standards from the Service Charter in force at the time. The 2002–03 Annual Report will assess performance against the standards in the revised charter.

• Our website will be available 98 per cent of the time. Planned downtime will be notified one day in advance.

All parts of the Archives website were available 99 per cent of the time during 2001–02 except the RecordSearch database. RecordSearch was available only
97 per cent of the time because of difficulties in maintaining stability in retrievals due to a 300 per cent increase in usage. All planned downtimes were notified on the Archives home page at least one day in advance.

• We will answer reference inquiries within 30 days, or advise researchers if there will be a delay.

We answered 95 per cent of reference inquiries within 30 days. In cases where a response took longer than 30 days, the researcher was advised before the 30-day period of the reasons for the delay and given an estimated response time.

• Our reference inquiry telephone will be answered from 9 am to 4.30 pm each business day in each office.

The Archives established a national 1300 number for reference inquiries to ensure that the public can speak to a reference office at these times and receive consistent advice from one point of contact.

• Our reading rooms will be open from 9 am to 4.30 pm each weekday as a minimum.

The Archives aims to ensure there is no disruption to our research services. There are sometimes unavoidable circumstances that result in a reading room being closed. The Adelaide reading room was closed for five working days while it was relocated from Collinswood to Angas Street, and our Canberra reading room was closed on Friday and Saturday during the Canberra V8 Supercar races because the track encircled the building. Information about these closures was circulated widely and well in advance by notices in the reading rooms and on our website.

• Records will be delivered within 30 minutes in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Perth and Sydney; 90 minutes in Canberra; and 24 to 48 hours in Melbourne because the repository is distant from the reading room.

Records were made available within the standard times in all National Archives offices in 2001–02.

• Photocopy orders of less than 10 pages will be completed the same day. Orders of more than 10 pages will be completed within 10 working days.

All orders of less than 10 pages were completed on the same day and 98 per cent of larger orders were completed within 10 working days.

• We are required to make access decisions on Commonwealth records within 90 days.

In 2001–02, 90 per cent of access applications were completed within 90 days. Longer delays resulted when the Archives sought the advice of another Commonwealth agency or a foreign government.

• We will provide advice about the destruction of any record within 30 days.

All inquiries about destroyed records were answered within 30 days by providing information about the disposal authority applied.

• We will respond to any complaint about our services within 10 working days.

All complaints about the Archives' services were responded to within 10 days.

Social justice

The National Archives' social justice objectives are to ensure that its services and collections are available to all and that its exhibitions, websites, education programs and publications assist in deepening understanding of social justice issues.

Regional Australia

In April 2001 the Archives introduced a digitisation on demand service. Of particular value to people in rural and regional areas, this service enables researchers to request the loading of digital copies of records held by the Archives in Canberra to the Archives website. There is no charge for this service and it has proven to be extremely popular with over 4 000 requests being received each month. This service means that distance and cost need not impede access to records in the Archives collection. At present the service is restricted to records held in Canberra, but a limited digitisation service was introduced in Sydney in April 2002.

Records of Indigenous Australians

Work continued on the Bringing Them Home Indexing Project, which forms part of the Commonwealth's response to the Bringing Them Home report and aims to help separated Indigenous people reunite with their families and communities. The allocation of $2 million over four years funded teams of indexers in Darwin, Canberra and Melbourne. By 30 June 2002, the project had checked 19 456 record items, identified 329 674 named individuals, and entered 296 241 of these names onto a searchable database. Although external funding has ended, for 2002–03 the Archives has committed $200 000 to continue indexing and to maintain the database.

The Archives has formalised consultative arrangements through memoranda of understanding with Aboriginal organisations in the Northern Territory and Victoria to facilitate access and assist family reunion. The Northern Territory Aboriginal Advisory Group met in the Archives Darwin office on 1 December 2001 and in the ATSIC Katherine Regional office on 15 May 2002.

The Victorian Aboriginal Advisory Group met once during the year, on 18 July 2001. The Director of the Archives Melbourne office also participated in a number of informal meetings with senior Aboriginal leaders including Ms Muriel Cadd, Chair of the Advisory group; Mr Alf Bamblett, President of the Aboriginal Advancement League; and Mr Jim Berg, CEO Koorie Heritage Trust.

The Archives was also involved with the Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce. The taskforce is a joint initiative of the Koorie Heritage Trust, Aboriginal Affairs Victoria and Public Record Office Victoria (PROV). The taskforce's secretariat is based in the PROV. Other agencies included in the taskforce are:

• Anglicare Victoria
• Bunjilaka Aboriginal Centre, Melbourne Museum
• Department of Human Services
• Department of Justice
• Link-Up Victoria
• MacKillop Family Services Inc.
• State Library of Victoria
• Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency
• Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service
• VicHealth Koori Health Research and Community Development Unit (Melbourne University)

The taskforce held a series of forums to inform Aboriginal communities about what records are kept and how they can be accessed. They met on 11 and 19 July, 8 and 29 August, 3 October and 19 December 2001. National Archives officers participated in each of these meetings.

During 2002, the Archives began negotiating a memorandum of understanding to formalise arrangements to facilitate access for family reunion purposes with the Nunkuwarrin Yunti of SA Incorporated, an Indigenous organisation responsible for providing Link-Up services in South Australia. We anticipate that the memorandum will be signed before December 2002.

Commonwealth Disability Strategy

The National Archives is committed to ensuring equitable access to its services for people with disabilities and has submitted a Disability Action Plan to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission as required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. In terms of the performance reporting framework, the Archives is a responsible agency in the role of both service provider and employer.

Provider

The Archives provides a range of services to the public including reference services, exhibitions, publications and websites. Disability strategies are incorporated into the development and continuous improvement mechanisms of all of these services. All Archives reading rooms provide wheelchair access. In addition the Archives provides researchers with aids to reading records including reading slopes, cushions for supporting heavy volumes and magnifying glasses. The Archives exhibitions are accessible for people with disabilities. The Archives maintains text-only versions of the Archives of Australia and Documenting a Democracy websites, which enable vision-impaired clients to use special browsers to read these sites. In 2001–02 the Archives improved its corporate website at www.naa.gov.au to achieve compliance with disability guidelines.

The Archives Service Charter was reviewed in 2001–02. The revised charter, issued in June 2002, documents a commitment to ensuring exhibitions and research facilities are accessible for people with disabilities.

The Archives' complaints and grievances mechanism has been enhanced with the release of the revised Service Charter. The Archives introduced a dedicated email address for complaints and comments, yourcomments@naa.gov.au, and a system for monitoring, responding to and reporting comments received.

Employer

All Archives' employment policies, procedures and practices comply with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

Potential applicants for employment can obtain written recruitment information by request using email, phone, facsimile or mail, and TTY is available if required. All recruitment information is also made available on the Archives website. Archives' training and development programs take into account any special needs of employees.

An education program is being developed to ensure managers and recruiters remain aware of the principles and practices of 'reasonable adjustment'. Information on 'reasonable adjustment' is being incorporated into the Archives Recruitment and Selection Guidelines.

For the limited courses arranged and offered internally, information on disability issues is included where appropriate. Action to include disability access needs on internal training nomination and evaluation forms is planned. In addition, arrangements have been made in two cases to ensure that employees with a disability have had their needs met in relation to training and development.

The Archives provides all staff with an effective complaints/grievance mechanism through sections F and G of the current Certified Agreement.

Charter of Public Service in a Culturally Diverse Society

The National Archives is committed to the principles of the Charter of Public Service in a Culturally Diverse Society. In terms of the charter framework, the Archives is a responsible agency in the role of both service provider and employer.

Provider

The Archives has comprehensive strategies and policies in place to ensure that the services it delivers are accessible to a culturally diverse clientele. The services it provides relate directly to the collection it manages and promotes, which is primarily in English. The scope for making the collection available in other community languages is therefore very limited, but the Archives makes considerable effort to highlight the cultural diversity that can be experienced within the records it holds. The Archives promotes records about Indigenous people, immigration, sponsored migration, cultural groups and citizenship on its website, in published guides, and in a number of published fact sheets. The Archives exhibition program includes exhibitions based on Indigenous and multicultural themes, and its exhibitions policy includes consideration of issues relating to cultural diversity.

Employer

As an employer the Archives is cognisant of the needs of employees from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and is continuing to develop strategies to ensure that all employees have the opportunity to achieve their potential and participate fully in the workplace. More work is needed by the Archives to give effect to the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs Diversity Charter Framework.

Employment policies and procedures such as the National Archives of Australia Certified Agreement 2001–03, the National Archives of Australia Workplace Diversity Program, the National Archives of Australia Outcomes and Outputs 2001–02, and the current Employment Assistance Program contain statements and initiatives that support or reflect the principles underpinning the charter.

While there is no regular diversity training program in place, the Archives addresses the issue of diversity in its current Induction Program, other internal training courses arranged by the Archives, and through regular articles in a staff newsletter.

The Archives provides all staff with an effective complaint mechanism through sections F and G of the current Certified Agreement.

Ecologically sustainable development

There are no large environmental risks associated with the functions of the National Archives, and opportunities to make a positive impact on the environment are limited. Nonetheless, environmental aspects are at the forefront of the Archives' facilities management.

The legislation administered by the Archives, the Archives Act 1983, contains no issues that could have environmental consequences. The Archives' functions likewise have in themselves no environmental impact. The outcome and outputs of the Archives are neutral in terms of ecologically sustainable development. The Archives' activities impact on the environment only insofar as it uses resources, such as energy and materials, in producing its outcomes.

The Archives is committed to continual improvement in energy use. In 2001–02, the Archives improved the monitoring and benchmarking of the energy consumption of its property portfolio. The Archives applied energy reduction techniques using the latest technology and specialised energy management software. Electricity, gas and water usage, temperature and humidity conditions are continuously analysed. The ability to view energy use of Archives facilities in real time via the Internet has improved the monitoring and analysis of energy use. The Archives' climate-controlled repositories are analysed with specially developed software. This allows optimum use of energy and ensures conditions are kept at the required environmental levels of temperature and humidity.

External relations

The National Archives provides leadership and support to the professional archives community in Australia and internationally, particularly in the Pacific region, principally through assistance with training and advice.

The 9th biennial conference of PARBICA (Pacific Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives) was held in Palau from 30 July to 4 August 2001. The Archives was represented by the Acting Director-General, Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, Assistant Director-General, Government Recordkeeping, Ms Kathryn Dan (PARBICA's treasurer) and Ms Pat Jackson, Collection Documentation Project Officer. The Director, Legislative and Accessibility Projects, Mr Ted Ling prepared a paper for the conference dealing with low cost record storage options for tropical environments. Ms Jackson gave the paper on his behalf. The National Archives supports PARBICA through providing a treasurer, assisting with project and communication costs.

From April 2001 to April 2002 the Archives assisted PARBICA to test the suitability of a shipping container as an alternative records repository in a tropical environment. The trial was conducted by the Archives in Darwin and was funded by PARBICA. It provided evidence and documentation on the use of shipping containers for countries that cannot afford to construct purpose built repositories. Although the results were not encouraging – temperature and relative humidity levels were too high to ensure long-term records preservation – the specifications developed by the Archives during the trial will be of benefit to countries whose limited funding means that they have no option other than to use shipping containers for records storage.

The Director-General meets twice yearly with the State and Territory Archivists through the Council of Federal, State and Territory Archives (COFSTA). The Archives provides secretariat support for the Council.

The National Archives is also involved in the international archives community through membership of the International Council on Archives (ICA).

Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich and Ms Kathryn Dan attended the XXXVth International Round Table on Archives (CITRA) in October 2001 in Reykjavik, Iceland and presented papers titled 'The Functional Approach to Appraisal' and 'Appraisal and International Standard ISO 15489' respectively.

Mr Andrew Wilson attended the International Conference and Workshop on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications in Tokyo, Japan, on 22–26 October 2001. During this conference Mr Wilson chaired meetings of the Dublin Core Governments Group and also represented that group at a meeting of the Dublin Core Management Committee. Mr Wilson also presented a proposal for a Dublin Core Governments Application Profile to the Dublin Core Usage Board. In April 2002 Mr Wilson together with Mr John Roberts of Archives New Zealand prepared a report entitled 'Global Recordkeeping Metadata Initiatives' for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Advisory Board.

In October 2001, Mr Adrian Cunningham, Director, Recordkeeping Standards and Policy, spoke on 'Harnessing the Power of Provenance in Archival Description' at an International Seminar on Archival Description hosted by the Belgian State Archives in Brussels.

In October 2001 Mr Geoff Smith chaired the Data Management conference in Singapore which was attended by representatives from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei. At the conference he presented a paper entitled 'The current state of play in electronic document and record management' and moderated a panel discussion on 'Managing and improving data management return on investment'. He also attended a Data Warehousing workshop and visited the National Archives of Singapore.

In October 2001, Ms Jill Caldwell attended the launch of the International Standard on Records Management at the conference of ARMA International, an American association of information management professionals, and also attended a meeting of the ISO committee on records management in Montreal, Canada.

The National Archives collaborates in a direct, practical and constructive manner in a number of areas of international priority. The Archives is represented on a number of international committees and organisations as well as national committees and other bodies. These are listed in Appendix F.

During 2001–02 the Archives showcased a number of Australian initiatives, projects and practice for which there is an international audience and which warrant international attention. A list of foreign delegates who met with the Archives in 2001–02 is at Appendix G.

In addition to hosting visiting archivists, the National Archives has been invited to speak to professionals on topics of current archival concern. A list of presentations and papers delivered and published overseas is at Appendix H.