Summary of activities

Meetings

The Council met on four occasions this year, as follows:

30 August 2002	Canberra
29 November 2002	Hobart
21 February 2003	Canberra
23 May 2003	Canberra

Statements required under the Act

The Archives Act requires the Minister and the Archives to place before the Council certain materials which specifically relate to disposal practices and special access matters.

National Archives’ records disposal practices

The Council received no statutory reports under subsection 25(1) of the Act.

The Council has continued to take an active interest in the records disposal practices of the National Archives, and has received regular briefings.

During the year, the Council was briefed on the number and range of Australian government agencies working with the Archives on Designing and Implementing Recordkeeping Systems (DIRKS) projects.

The Council also followed the progress of the Collection Review projects with great interest.

Special access to official records

Under subsection 56(2) of the Archives Act 1983, access may be granted to official records under the 30-year age threshold. Application is made directly to agencies responsible for controlling the relevant records. Deciding whether to grant access is the responsibility of the agency. Special arrangements have been in place since 1988 to assist agencies in this decision-making.

At each Council meeting, members noted reports prepared by the Archives on requests for and decisions relating to access requested under section 56(2) of the Act.

Nine applications for access to records under section 56(2) of the Archives Act were received in the reporting period. Of these, eight were granted access by the agencies concerned and one request was withdrawn.