The Archives has set three strategic directions within government resourcing and policies:

Strategic Direction 1
To ensure full and accurate recording of government administration and decisions

Strategic Direction 2
To direct resources increasingly towards the identification, control, preservation and accessibility of higher value records

Strategic Direction 3
To promote wider accessibility and use of the archival resources of Australia

The Archives’ annual Strategic Directions Implementation Plan has provided a framework for work planning, resource allocation and performance assessment within government resourcing and policies, and the Strategic Directions. Reports against the 1998–99 Plan are set out in the following Performance Reports.

Government Services

All agencies understand and apply best practice in the creation, management (including control, preservation, accessibility and storage) and disposal of their records.

Several staff graduated in May from a year-long course in records management prepared by Monash University for the Archives.

The innovative records management and archives training program begun in April 1998 was successfully completed in December 1998 by many archives staff. This program was delivered by Monash University’s Centre for Information Management and Systems Practice and was aimed at ensuring staff understood all the issues involved in modern recordkeeping practices. The contract was finalised in May 1999 with the presentation of 110 Certificates of Achievement to successful participants.

Modules in the second training program being delivered by the Open Learning Institute of Charles Sturt University continue to be made available online to participating staff, with a total of 13 units offered to date. Some 46 staff across Australia are currently undertaking this training program, which is expected to be completed in August 1999.

During 1998–99 the Archives made significant progress towards developing standards and guidelines to help agencies adopt best practice recordkeeping systems.

The Archives, in collaboration with State Records New South Wales, is well advanced in preparing an online manual to help agencies systematically review their existing recordkeeping practices or develop new ones consistent with the Australian Standard for Records Management (AS 4390). The manual provides a systematic approach for agencies to identify their recordkeeping requirements and to devise and implement agency-specific solutions to their recordkeeping needs. Adoption of the methodology outlined in the manual will ensure more efficient recordkeeping practices in the Commonwealth and enable better access by agencies and citizens to essential evidence of government activities and decision making. An exposure draft of the manual is expected to be available on the National Archives website in October 1999.

In June, the Archives published the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies. This standard, which is available on the National Archives’ website, specifies the descriptive information that should be captured in the recordkeeping systems used by Commonwealth agencies. Compliance with the standard will help agencies manage their electronic records effectively and maintain the meaning, authenticity, security, accessibility and usability of those records over time. In developing this standard the Archives consulted with records management software vendors, selected government agencies, State archives authorities and other experts in Australia and overseas. The standard is designed to be compatible with other standards including the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata standard for online resource discovery.

Projects have commenced to develop guidelines for agencies in the areas of custody policy, appraisal advice, and a new General Disposal Authority for administrative records linked to a whole-of-government thesaurus. The General Disposal Authority will be issued in February 2000.

To improve the creation and maintenance of administrative records, complementary recordkeeping advice will be made available later that year.

The Archives has commenced a major collection management initiative to re-examine the value of records held and to increase accessibility of those confirmed to be of enduring value. This thorough review of all holdings in all locations is expected to identify significant quantities of records which can be removed from the collection. Over the next three years it will have a major impact on custody arrangements.

From January 1999 the Archives ceased to accept transfer of records unless those records were of high value and at significant risk or of immediate use to researchers. This change is the latest phase in the development of the Archives’ custodial policies to ensure the National Archives’ collection holds those records that must be preserved for future generations and made accessible.

In September 1998 the Archives issued for public comment a discussion paper entitled Making Choices: Deciding which Commonwealth records to keep for posterity. Making Choices presented three aims and several assumptions about how the Archives might develop new approaches to deciding how long records need to be retained. In particular, it dealt with the reasons for retaining records once agencies’ business needs and finite accountability requirements have been exhausted. There was a good response to the paper from a wide range of sources. Most comment supported the thrust of the document though there was a divergence of views on particular aspects. The Archives will issue a revised statement of its appraisal aims and approaches in October 1999.

In order to provide practical guidance for agencies on best practice recordkeeping systems, the Archives is redeveloping its own recordkeeping system. During 1998–99 the Archives made significant progress towards implementing a new electronic system to meet its internal recordkeeping requirements. The Archives intends to use the experience gained in implementing this new system to deliver practical guidance to Commonwealth agencies on the design and implementation of best practice recordkeeping systems.

At the request of the Online Council of Ministers, the Archives acts as national maintenance agency for the AGLS metadata standard. The aim of this standard, which is based on the international ‘Dublin Core’ metadata standard for online resource discovery, is to improve the visibility and accessibility of government information and services through standardisation of resource descriptions on the Internet. In cooperation with the Office for Government Online, the Archives developed The Australian Government Locator Service Manual for Users. This manual was published on the Archives’ website in August. In November the Online Council of Ministers endorsed the use of AGLS by all governments in Australia.

In February, the Archives signed a licence agreement which gives the Commonwealth Government a whole-of-government licence for the use, in perpetuity, of the Keyword AAA Thesaurus of General Administrative Terms which is the intellectual property of the State Records New South Wales. Other users are South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. As the only thesaurus of descriptor terms for government administrative functions that complies with the Australian Standard for Records Management (AS 4390), it constitutes one of the cornerstones of the new Commonwealth recordkeeping regime that the Archives is developing and promoting. It will play a key role in a new General Disposal Authority for administrative records and will also form the basis of merged functional thesauri that Commonwealth agencies will need to develop under the new regime.

In a closely related project the Archives is developing a thesaurus that will help ensure national consistency in the terminology used to describe government resources on the Internet. During the year the Archives convened a cross-jurisdictional working group to advise on this thesaurus. At the same time the Archives developed a prototype interactive interface to the thesaurus, which provides a natural language searching facility that can be incorporated into government web searching facilities.

• continued review of the value and retention status of records in custody

During 1998–99 the Archives continued a major review of its holdings. The object of the review is to ensure that records in custody continue to justify the resources the Archives devotes to their storage and preservation and that records which do merit retention are identified adequately so they can be made publicly accessible through the Archives’ databases and finding aids. The review operates within the framework of the Archives’ function-based appraisal of Commonwealth recordkeeping. Much of the work during the year involved analysing holdings and identifying likely review targets. Major priorities of the review are approximately 32 shelf kilometres of records which have not been sentenced or for which there is no current record disposal authority and a reappraisal of the extensive holdings of the general correspondence records of branch offices of Commonwealth agencies.

The Archives has commenced discussions with several government departments with a view to identifying more precisely the requirements to keep certain records for long periods and the implications of this for custody, preservation and access. Records included in this category are Defence personnel records, veterans’ dossiers and immigration case files.

• implementation of preservation strategies according to value, format, use and significance

The National Archives’ paper testing facilities at Mitchell (ACT) were formally accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities in January 1999. Manufacturers wishing to use the certified trademark lodged by the Archives with IP Australia may have their paper and board products tested at the facility. Use of the trademarked products as the medium for recorded information or in the construction of records containers will greatly extend records’ longevity.

• implementation of personal records strategy

The Archives’ personal records strategy aims to encourage people closely associated with the Commonwealth to deposit their records with the Archives along with official records. The Archives was particularly active in this area during and after the Commonwealth election in October 1998. The Archives also conducts a continuing campaign to ensure current ministerial offices are advised and assisted in the management of ministerial records and the selection of those which must be lodged with the National Archives.

• protection of significant records that are at risk due to age, privatisation or corporatisation

During the reporting period three disposal authorities were issued covering the transfer of custody and/or ownership of records following corporatisation and privatisation of government agencies. Work progressed on negotiations with the Office of Asset Sales and IT Outsourcing, relevant Departments and legal representatives on the disposal of records for a number of agencies targeted for corporatisation or privatisation, including the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority and Australian Defence Industries.

Efforts were also directed to recovering records where temporary custody was granted to the purchasers of several Commonwealth agencies sold during 1997–98. These activities have been largely successful, with most purchasers acknowledging their responsibilities under the sale contracts and the disposal authorities issued by the Archives to return certain records, and negotiations are continuing for recovery of some records.

* General Disposal Authorities, unless otherwise stated, apply to all agencies.

** ‘All-states’ Disposal Authorities apply to all the regional or local offices of one agency.

*** Other agency-specific Disposal Authorities apply to only one agency.

Total record holdings by disposal status – in metres

Notes: ‘Temporary value’ includes records of short-term value. These are no longer being accepted into the Archives’ custody.

The last four terms describe the following categories of records:

Table 3

* Unevaluated records are records not identified as permanent or temporary under a Disposal Authority issued by the Archives. The disposal status of these records is either ‘unknown’, ‘no Disposal Authority’ or ‘not sentenced’. These terms are explained in Table 2.

** The Archives makes available spare capacity in some of its repositories to State governments and non-Commonwealth institutions for records storage on a
self-service basis. A change in the method of disposal classification of these records resulted in a significant increase in unevaluated records in 1997–98. This year the quantities involved were not included.

* A consignment is a quantity of records belonging to the same series having the same value and disposal sentence and usually transferred to the Archives at the same time.

** ‘Other’ includes those types of consignments shown in previous years as ‘unknown’, ‘no Disposal Authority’, ‘not sentenced’ or ‘not applicable’.

The Australian community understands the role archives play in society, accepts the intrinsic value of the National Archives, and has satisfying access to its collection

A national omnibus survey was conducted in August 1998 repeating the benchmarking study carried out in October 1995. The results showed that:

(1) general knowledge of the Archives has increased over the last three years from around two thirds of the population surveyed claiming knowledge of the Archives to around three quarters and there has been a general broadening of awareness among the population;

(2) there was a general increase in people’s understanding of the various activities the Archives is involved in; and

(3) the percentage of Australians who considered that the Archives’ role is ‘very important’ increased from 59 per cent in 1995 to 65 per cent in 1998.

The Archives officially opened its new headquarters in Canberra in September. Since that time about 25 000 visitors have attended a wide variety of events and explored the Treasures Gallery, Exhibition Gallery, visitors’ lounge and orientation centre, with about 75 per cent of them visiting the Archives for the first time.

There has been a marked increase in the numbers of visits by researchers to the reading rooms of the Archives (60 per cent), with new readers accounting for 18 per cent of the increase.

Examination of responses received indicates satisfaction levels of between 90 and 93 per cent consistently.

3. Standards of service stipulated in the Archives Service Charter met, measured by the following indicators:

• a level of 98 per cent achievement for

– reference enquiries answered within 30 days

In this reporting period the general reference service achieved a 99.3 per cent standard. This standard was achieved, despite a 42 per cent increase in inquiries received, by the streamlining of a number of work practices.

The Archives provides access to the dossiers of World War I servicemen through a mail order copying service. During 1998–99, 15 296 dossiers were requested and in 87 per cent of cases, copies were provided within 30 days of request. Failure to meet the standard was caused by redesign of the processes and procedures during the July–September quarter.

The website was available for over 98 per cent of the time which exceeded the standard set in the Service Charter.

– records requested in reading rooms available in the reading room within 30 minutes in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, 90 minutes in Canberra and 48 hours in Melbourne

This standard is measured by exception reporting, through complaints received. During the reporting period no written complaints were received about instances in which the standard was not reached. From the 87 079 items issued in reading rooms, 15 verbal complaints were received when records were not received within the stipulated time. These instances reflect an inability to quickly locate the requested record.

– orders of fewer than 10 photocopies done on day of visit and orders of more than 10 copies done within 10 calendar days

A total of 31 462 photocopies were produced during the reporting period. During the first two quarters of the year responses to 10 requests for fewer than 10 copies did not meet the service standard while responses to 39 requests for more than 10 copies did not meet the service standard. This failure to satisfy 100 per cent of requests was due to relocation of a state office reading room which disrupted services. The standards were fully met in the latter quarters.

• proportion of access requests satisfied within:

– 30 days

– 90 days

This year 88 per cent of applications were satisfied within the minimum time frame
(0–30 days), compared with 84 per cent of applications in 1997–98. Ninety-four per cent were completed within 90 days compared with 93 per cent in 1997–98. Long response times generally resulted when records were referred to agencies or foreign governments for advice.

The National Archives Service Charter was published on the Archives’ website in July and in hard copy format in August 1998. It is made available in all reading rooms. Copies are displayed in the Canberra office foyer and in the visitors’ lounge.

The Charter provides a detailed description of the services and standards members of the public should expect from the Archives and the mechanism through which complaints can be lodged when these standards of service are not met.

The standards have been adopted as performance measures and are reported against under that heading in this report.

The complaints mechanism has dealt with only two written complaints during the reporting period and the matters were resolved to the satisfaction of the complainants and the Archives.

The 1968 Cabinet records, comprising 432 submissions with related briefing notes and decisions and 286 decisions without submission, were made publicly available on 2 January 1999. Embargoed access was provided to accredited media representatives following a briefing on 1 December 1998. This resulted in media coverage about the records both in Australia and overseas. Digitised versions of the original documents relating to the major issues were made available on the website from 1 January, thus ensuring widespread access to the records.

The Archives produces guides to its collection to enhance accessibility. Two new guides published during the reporting period cover the topics of royalty and immigration 1901–1939. The Archives has also made the text of eight guides available on the website, thus providing information about records relating to a diverse selection of topics of relevance to current research trends.

During the reporting period 36 new Fact Sheets were produced and the information contained in 50 previously released Fact Sheets was revised.

The total number of items over 30 years old which were added to the Archives’ database during the reporting period was 244 665 which represents an 11 per cent increase. Members of the public may access the database and retrieve information about record items through keyword searching at all Archives’ offices or on the Archives’ website.

The project to rehouse the individual dossiers of Australian service personnel who served in World War I and to enter details on the Archives’ item-level database continued during the reporting period. A total of 166 000 dossiers have been rehoused and details can be searched on the database which is available nationally, in all reading rooms as well as on the Archives’ website.

Morgan Swift dressed in a postman’s uniform at the Signed, Sealed, Delivered exhibition in Canberra. A children’s activity centre formed part of the exhibition.

Mr Michael Leunig gives Mr Andrew Denton an expert guided tour of The Happy Prints exhibition.

Thousands of people visited the Archives’ exhibitions as they continued their national tours. Between Two Worlds: The Commonwealth Government and the Removal of Aboriginal Children of Part-descent in the Northern Territory was exhibited at the Parramatta Heritage Centre. Selling a Dream: Promoting Australia to Postwar Migrants toured to the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Orange Regional Gallery, Albury Regional Museum and Polly Woodside Maritime Museum in Melbourne. Scene Stealers: Australian Theatre 1870–1955 travelled to the Newcastle Regional Museum, Pilbeam Theatre in Rockhampton and Albury Regional Art Gallery. Media coverage, feedback from venue staff and comments in visitors’ books indicated that the exhibitions satisfied visitors’ expectations.

The first exhibitions in the Exhibition Gallery in Canberra were Signed, Sealed, Delivered: When the Post Office was King; Eye to Eye: Observations of FE Williams, Government Anthropologist in Papua 1922–43; and The Happy Prints: Printmaking by Michael Leunig, which was the first visiting exhibition to be shown at the Archives. A Visions of Australia grant is assisting the national tour of Signed, Sealed, Delivered: When the Post Office was King to regional venues including Bendigo and Geelong this year.

These three exhibitions received good media coverage and warm responses from visitors.

Use of the Archives’ website continued to increase during 1998–99. There were 38 255 unique visits to the site in the month of April 1999, accessing over 185 000 web pages. These figures represent a more than five-fold increase over April 1998, when the restructured and redesigned website was launched. Guest book comments continued to confirm the popularity and navigability of the site.

The Archives became the first archival institution in the world to put its full database on the Internet when a version of the item-level database, ANGAM II, was released on the website in November. It has received many positive comments from users and has greatly increased requests for access to records.

Images and captions continued to be added to the photographic database Photo Search which was put on the website in 1997–98. Currently it contains 80 567 captions and 3 055 of them are linked to digitised images. Public demand for photos from the collection is continuing to grow.

A readership survey of Memento recipients, conducted in January, indicated a very high level of satisfaction with the quarterly newsletter: 98 per cent of respondents found Memento ‘very interesting’ or ‘interesting’; and 90 per cent said Memento was either ‘directly relevant’ or ‘relevant’ to their business, area of study or interests.

Archives’ publications continued to sell well and received favourable reviews. Finding Families: The Guide to the National Archives of Australia for Genealogists, launched in September by Tim Bowden, was well received by genealogists and archivists. Over half the print run was sold by May. Solid, Safe, Secure – Building Archives Repositories in Australia was launched in August and sold well in Australia and internationally.

Several Archives’ publications received awards this year. Convict Fleet to Dragon Boat was chosen by Mark Butler, IT writer in The Australian, as one of the top five multimedia CD-ROMs released in 1998. It won The Australian’s Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing in the Secondary Teaching and Learning Package category in 1999 and received a Museums Australia Publications Design award. The Voices for Democracy education kit was shortlisted in The Australian’s Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing in 1998 and received a Museums Australia award. One Destiny! The Federation Story also received an award in the Museums Australia competition.

A series of talks and tours was conducted for teachers and students across Australia throughout the year. There was a sharp increase in the number of events conducted for the public, especially after the national building opened. Several activities stand out as particularly successful in terms of numbers of people attending and their enthusiastic response. These include the Archives’ participation in the Northern Territory Expo; the ‘Discover Your National Capital’ program held throughout Canberra in December and January; the Back to East Block festival; the Michael Leunig book signing; the Family History Fair conducted in collaboration with the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra that attracted nearly 700 people; a series of events in Queensland regional centres; the Archives’ stand at the National Science Festival’s Amazing World of Science Exhibition; and a tour of regional centres in southern New South Wales conducted in association with State Records, New South Wales.

During the period two meetings were held with the Office of Indigenous Affairs in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to report progress on the project. The Office noted that progress as reported was satisfactory.

The project, which is currently indexing names relating to Indigenous peoples in the Northern Territory, is a standing item on the agenda of the National Archives’ Northern Territory Aboriginal Advisory Group. Feedback in this forum indicates that the project to date is meeting community expectations. A visit to the project in Canberra by national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Link-Up officers also indicated a high level of Indigenous community satisfaction with the project.

Table 7

Use by Commonwealth agencies

* An application for access is required when access is sought to records that have not previously been made publicly available.

Internal reconsideration of access decisions

* Including any record items outstanding from previous years.

Management support in 1998-99 was provided by four functional areas:

• Business Systems
• Facilities
• Finance
• Staffing.

Facilities and corporate services are provided and managed efficiently and effectively in support of the organisation’s mission and strategic directions

A 5-year Strategic Property Plan, completed in August 1998, identified Mitchell (ACT), East Burwood (Vic) and Chester Hill (NSW) repositories as the Archives’ core storage facilities for the next five to ten years. Notwithstanding expected records reduction within the next decade, the Mitchell and East Burwood buildings may need to be extended. The Chester Hill facility will need to be either refurbished, air conditioned throughout and extended or replaced. The Archives’ business strategy in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin is to maintain minimal storage facilities.

These strategic requirements will now be implemented. The Government’s decision to offer for sale the non-core elements of the Commonwealth’s Special Purpose Estate, including the National Archives’ repositories, may require some modifications particularly as to timing.

Development of the Archives’ integrated system continued to progress. The Disposal module was implemented in December 1998 and the modules to register system users and describe the administrative context of Commonwealth records were being implemented at the end of June 1999. Modules covering other operations of the Archives will be implemented in the first half of 2000.

User testing established the acceptability and Year 2000 compliance of the modules being implemented and identified areas for refinement.

Following certification in September 1998, implementation of the National Archives Certified Agreement 1998–2000 commenced immediately. Arrangements were in place by December 1998 to provide all employees covered by the Agreement with a bonus and pay rise, translate positions to the new Australian Public Service classification structure and set up the Workplace Relations Committee.

A Performance Management Scheme linked to salary was introduced under the Agreement, with employees trained for participation in the Scheme in time for the start of its interim cycle in April 1999.

By the end of the year substantial progress had been made on other matters accorded high priority. These included: development of Archives-specific worklevel standards; review of the Archives’ Occupational Health and Safety policy; endorsement of a Workplace Diversity Program; and development of guidelines for staff to purchase leave. Work on changes to employees’ leave entitlements under the Agreement was undertaken following the successful transition to a new payroll provider.

A commitment was made to commence the Investors in People program early in 1999–2000. This will build on results from the Archives’ participation in a people management benchmarking study undertaken during the year.

Accrual budgeting was implemented nationally and met the target time frame as set out in the implementation plan. Accrual budgeting information was provided to the Department on time as required, with a satisfactory outcome.

No instances of financial non-compliance were reported by the Department and the Australian National Audit Office during the year; and decisions relating to human resource management were made in accordance with relevant legislation and government policies.

A review of the Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) policy commenced.

Health and Safety Committees and Representatives were active in promoting OH&S issues, including training and alerting staff to the availability of information on the Internet. Issues which received particular attention included a code of practice for first aid and an ergonomic review of adjustable workstations and chairs.

Positive feedback was received from staff in all offices on the provision of training and advice on implementation of accrual budgeting. No major delays were experienced in, or complaints received about, financial processing.

The Archives has purchased payroll services from the Department of Finance and Administration (and predecessor) for a number of years. Arising from this Department’s centralisation and subsequent outsourcing of its corporate services, the Archives made arrangements with a sister cultural institution, the National Library of Australia, to provide payroll services to it, from January 1999. The transitions were made smoothly for staff, while also achieving efficiencies for the Archives.

A sustained effort was made to ensure staff awareness of, and involvement in, decisions and matters which directly affected them, through the Archives staff newsletter Grapevine and the use of ‘public folders’ on the Archives’ internal information network. The latter allowed staff to express their views directly. This corporate communication channel complemented more formal mechanisms and was particularly effective in workplace relations and development of the performance management scheme. Other issues canvassed widely included workplace diversity and a staff exchange framework, an arrangement established with a number of portfolio agencies for which the Archives provides program coordination.

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[contents] [corporate overview] [performance reports] [financial statements] [appendix a] [appendix b] [appendix c]
[appendix d] [appendix e] [appendix f] [appendix g] [appendix h] [advisory council] [compliance index]