Navigation Banner contents home search feedback email

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 2003 were:

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 2003, is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – National Archives of Australia organisation chart as at 30 June 2003

Figure 1 - Organisation chart

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 based on outcomes and outputs, each section and office prepares annual work plans and makes quarterly and half yearly reports to the Executive against performance measures. The annual report is derived from these reports.

National Archives of Australia Audit Committee

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

In April 2003, Mr Vic Rogers was appointed as an external member to the Committee in response to a review of the Archives’ corporate governance by the Archives’ internal auditor, KPMG.

The Archives has initiated a review of the membership and the terms of reference of the Committee.

The Audit Committee consists of:

Observers from the Finance section, ANAO and KPMG participate fully in discussion.

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:

In 2002–03, the Committee met on 9 August 2002, 20 September 2002, 6 December 2002 and 9 May 2003.

Internal audit and risk management

KPMG is contracted to provide internal audit functions, including risk assessment. In July 2002 the Archives exercised an option to renew the internal audit contract for a further year. This term is due to expire in July 2003.

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

The Risk Management Steering Committee promotes risk awareness, provides risk awareness and management training, oversees the specific treatment of high and medium level risk, and monitors and reviews organisational risk management. The committee meets quarterly. In 2002–03 the committee met on 1 August 2002, 7 November 2002, 13 February 2003 and 29 May 2003.

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

Financial performance

In 2002–03 the Archives recorded a surplus of $0.57 million after extraordinary items and payment for the capital use charge were taken into account. The accumulated surplus at 30 June 2003 was $745 million compared to $744 million for the previous year. The Archives’ net assets at 30 June 2003 were $746 million.

The outcome matched the projected result for the financial year and outputs were delivered as agreed with the government.

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

Payment of accounts

The Archives processed 14,788 accounts for payment in 2002–03. 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 $2000. All purchases over $2000 are reported by gazettal.

During 2002–03, 1029 purchases over $2000 were gazetted. Of these, 210 were gazetted more than six weeks after the date of purchase.

More than 10,147 payments were made by electronic means in 2002–03.

In 2002–03 the Archives engaged 68 consultants, while a further 7 engaged in previous years were still under contract. 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 2002–03 the National Archives again joined with the National Library of Australia and the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts to fund the Community Heritage Grants scheme. Grants of up to $8000 are awarded annually to help the preservation of precious photos, papers, audiovisual recordings and paintings held by community organisations such as local historical societies, public libraries, Indigenous and ethnic groups.

This financial year the Archives contributed $40,000 towards the total grants of $165,107. There were 246 applications, of which 37 were successful. Grant winners are listed on the National Library of Australia’s website at www.nla.gov.au.

Internal and external scrutiny

Audits by the Australian National Audit Office

An interim audit was conducted during the preparation of the Archives’ Financial Statements for the 2002–03 financial year. A number of issues were highlighted at the interim audit stage. The inability of the records storage management system to generate invoices, inadequate segregation of duties relating to the management of the publication inventory held on the Archives’ premises, and uncontrolled access to the publication inventory are ongoing issues and will be resolved in 2003–04.

In November 2002, as part of a larger cross-agency audit, the ANAO conducted a desktop review of the Archives’ compliance with Section 2 of the Senate Order dated 20 June 2001 which requires agencies to list contracts worth over $100,000 on their websites. The audit report will be tabled in Parliament in September 2003.

In December 2002 the ANAO audited the financial statements of the Archives’ 2001–02 annual report to determine whether the statements published in print and online agreed with statements certified by the ANAO. The audit report was tabled in Parliament in May 2003.

In January and February 2003 the ANAO audited the business continuity management arrangements of four Australian government organisations, including the Archives, to assess whether the existing frameworks exhibited the principles espoused in the ANAO’s Better Practice Guide on Business Continuity Management. The audit report was tabled in Parliament in June 2003.

In May 2003 the ANAO selected the Archives to participate in a cross-agency survey of the management of intellectual property in Australian government agencies.

Parliamentary Committees and other inquiries

Management and integrity of electronic information in the Commonwealth

In October 2002 the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit resolved to inquire into the issue of the management and integrity of electronic information by the Australian Government. The Archives provided a written submission to the Joint Committee and delivered oral evidence at the Joint Committee hearing on 1 April 2003.

Pay parking in the Parliamentary Zone

On 10 December 2002 the Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government, the Hon. Wilson Tuckey, MP asked the Joint Committee on National Capital and External Territories to inquire into pay parking in the Parliamentary Zone. The Archives provided a written submission and delivered oral evidence at the public hearing of the Joint Committee on 9 May 2003.

Members of Parliament staff

On 19 March 2003 the Senate referred issues relating to Members of Parliament staff to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report. The Archives provided a written submission to the Committee.

Bringing Them Home report

Written and oral information was provided in October and December 2002 to the evaluation conducted by the Ministerial Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs of responses to the Bringing Them Home report.

Human resources

There were no requests for review of human resources actions in 2002–03. No grievances were referred to the Merit Protection Commissioner, and there were no appeals to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Privacy Commissioner

There were no complaints to, or reports or determinations by, the Privacy Commissioner about Archives’ activities during 2002–03.

Commonwealth Ombudsman

The Commonwealth Ombudsman made no reports to the Minister in relation to the Archives under the provisions of the Ombudsman Act 1976 during the year.

Freedom of Information

The Archives received two applications for information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) during 2002–03. One of these applications was withdrawn. The information requested in the other application was provided within 30 days.

The Archives continued to provide agencies with Information Access Office facilities in all its offices, in accordance with section 28 of the FOI Act. The facilities include making available section 9 statements completed by agencies.

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

Ecologically sustainable development and environmental performance

The Archives is committed to continual improvement in environmental management. Performance is routinely measured against established standards. Improved monitoring and benchmarking of the energy consumption of its property portfolio has resulted in significant reductions in usage. Climate controlled storage of records is the primary function of a number of Archives’ repositories. The latest report on Energy Use in Commonwealth Buildings shows that energy usage for climate controlled stores by the Archives decreased by 12.2 per cent and overall energy consumption for all Archives’ sites decreased by 5.1 per cent.

The Archives uses ‘state of the art’ technology and specialised energy management software to maintain optimum temperature and humidity in its climate controlled repositories. The Archives has begun to meter and sub-meter its largest repositories and the East Block administration building in Parkes, ACT. Further improvements are expected with the introduction of remote monitoring of all Archives’ sites.

The Archives implemented a number of specific strategies to reduce gas and water usage and waste and increase recycling, with significant results throughout its property portfolio. Older pneumatic shelving is being converted to hand-wound systems on an ongoing basis to extend the life of the equipment. Environmentally sustainable methods are used in the authorised destruction of records in accordance with approved disposal schedules.

The Archives’ outcomes and outputs are relatively neutral in terms of ecologically sustainable development. With limited opportunities to make a positive impact on the environment, the Archives has employed industry best practice environmental management techniques to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases and the use of scarce global resources.

Service Charter

The National Archives Service Charter sets out Archives’ services available to the public, the standards applying to each of those services, and mechanisms for comments and complaints. The charter applies to a range of services including file retrieval, reference assistance, copying, publications, websites and exhibitions.

The Service Charter will be reviewed in June 2004. Copies are available from all Archives’ reading rooms and on the Archives’ website at www.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 2002–03. It uses the standards from the Service Charter in force at the time.

The Archives manages its website at www.naa.gov.au along with three other websites: the Documenting a Democracy website (foundingdocs.gov.au), the Australia’s Prime Ministers website (primeministers.naa.gov.au) and the Archives of Australia website (archivenet.gov.au). All websites were available over 98 per cent of the time. The Documenting a Democracy website was off-line for a number of days due to a change in the registration of the service provider. Despite the downtime, the availability of the website was above the required level.

The launch of the Australia’s Prime Ministers website and the promotion of World War II service records on the Today Show greatly increased server activity. This additional pressure on the system was successfully managed due primarily to the new array of web-servers.

All planned downtimes were notified on the Archives’ website at least one day in advance.

The Archives answered 92.4 per cent of reference inquiries within 30 days. In cases where a response took longer than 30 days, researchers were advised of the reasons for the delay and given an estimated response time.

The Archives’ national 1300 telephone number for reference inquiries was staffed from 9 am to 5 pm each business day.

A review of reading room opening hours during 2002–03 resulted in an extension of opening hours. All Archives’ reading rooms are now open from 9 am to 4.30 pm on weekdays as a minimum. The Adelaide reading room offered Saturday openings for the first time in 2002–03. The Hobart reading room was closed for three working days during its relocation from Rosny Park to Hobart city. All reading rooms, with the exception of the Canberra Orientation Centre, were closed between Christmas and New Year 2002. The telephone inquiry service was staffed throughout the Christmas period. Information about these closures was circulated widely in advance through notices placed in the reading rooms and on the Archives’ website.

Records were made available within the standard times in all Archives’ reading rooms in 2002–03.

All orders less than 10 pages were completed on the same day and all larger orders were completed within 14 working days.

In 2002–03, 96 per cent of access applications were completed within 90 days. Applications not finalised within 90 days tended to be those where the advice of another Australian government agency or overseas government was required before an access decision could be made.

All inquiries about destroyed records were answered within 30 days by providing information on the provisions of the relevant disposal authority.

All complaints about Archives’ services were responded to within 10 days. The Archives maintains a national complaints register to ensure a consistent record of the complaint and its resolution is kept and to allow the Archives to assess more easily whether there is any pattern to complaints.

Access and equity

The Archives’ objective is to ensure that its services and collection are available to all. In recognition of the Archives’ role in Australian society, the Archives undertakes a number of programs to enable as many people as possible to access the collection, whether through a personal visit, the remote reference service, or services provided on the Archives’ website.

Regional Australia

The Archives is aware that, although it has offices in every State and Territory, it is difficult for people in regional Australia to access its collection. To facilitate access for those in regional areas, the Archives has implemented a number of strategies, including maintaining a comprehensive website; operating a reference service that responds to inquiries received by mail, phone, fax and email; offering a digitisation on demand service; and providing touring exhibitions and education programs.

Reference service

The Archives’ collection (approximately 350 shelf kilometres) is located in repositories in all capital cities. The Archives Act 1983 grants all Australians a right of access to this collection. Reading rooms in each capital city staffed by experienced reference officers are available to those wishing to use the collection. Researchers can purchase photocopies of records or request that digital copies of selected collection material be placed on the Archives’ website through the digitisation on demand service. A recent survey of researchers who contacted the Archives by mail, phone, fax or email found that 45 per cent of respondents were from regional Australia.

Digitisation on demand

Since the digitisation on demand service was introduced in April 2001, over 3 million images have been loaded onto the Archives’ website. These images can be accessed through the Internet at any time. Researchers are no longer constrained by their inability to visit an Archives’ reading room, and the images are available not only to the person who requested them, but to anyone who has access to the Internet. The digitisation on demand service is available for parts of the collection only.

National Archives’ websites

The National Archives’ website at www.naa.gov.au facilitates access to the Archives’ collection. The website contains information about the collection, provides instruction on how to begin research, allows the Archives’ collection database, RecordSearch, to be searched and facilitates email inquiries from off-site researchers.

For those researchers unable to visit Archives’ reading rooms, the Archives publishes online Fact Sheets and research guides to records in the collection. Other Archives’ publications can be purchased online using the newly implemented secure e-commerce facility, eShop (shop.naa.gov.au).

The Archives’ other websites, Documenting a Democracy at www.foundingdocs.gov.au, Australia’s Prime Ministers at primeministers.naa.gov.au and Archives of Australia at archivenet.gov.au, provide accessible information to researchers on specialised topics.

Regional visits and tours

Archives’ offices in each State arrange periodic tours to rural towns to explain and promote the Archives’ services. The Archives also has a program of touring exhibitions based on archival records, which travel to venues around the country. Education programs are developed to accompany touring exhibitions. These programs are accessible through the Archives’ website to venues and schools in the localities visited by the touring exhibition.

Archival support program

In 2002–03 the Archives contributed to the Australian Society of Archivists’ Archival Support Program by presenting four conservation workshops in regional districts in Victoria. The aim of the workshops was to provide archivists, librarians and museum curators in regional archives, libraries and museums, who are often volunteers, with the skills to manage their collections within a limited budget.

Records relating to Indigenous Australians

The Hon. Philip Ruddock, MP, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, and Dr Michael (Mick) Dodson, Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), speak with Ms Sandra Riordan of the Melbourne office at the AIATSIS Indigenous Family History Fair at Albury-Wodonga in April 2003.
The Hon. Philip Ruddock, MP, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, and Dr Michael (Mick) Dodson, Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), speak with Ms Sandra Riordan of the Melbourne office at the AIATSIS Indigenous Family History Fair at Albury–Wodonga in April 2003.

Memorandum of understanding

On 11 September 2002 the Archives signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nunkuwarrin Yunti of South Australia. The memorandum sets out arrangements to assist South Australian Aboriginal people to access Commonwealth records held by the Archives. Similar memoranda relating to records of Northern Territory and Victorian Aboriginal peoples were signed in 1997 and 2000. The Victorian Aboriginal Advisory Group met twice during the year, in February and April 2003. The Northern Territory Aboriginal Advisory Group also met twice during the year, in October 2002 and February 2003.

Bringing Them Home Indexing Project

Work continued on the Bringing Them Home Indexing Project, which forms part of the Australian Government’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 the four years 1998–2002 funded teams of indexers in Darwin, Canberra and Melbourne. By June 2003 the project had checked 20,172 record items, identified 388,487 named individuals, and entered 315,386 of these names onto a searchable database. In 2002–03 the Archives received 693 requests for information on the database. The Archives spent approximately $193,000 on the project in 2002–03.

Representatives of the following organisations visited the Archives in Canberra to see demonstrations of the Bringing Them Home database:

Commonwealth Disability Strategy

The 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. 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. The Archives’ corporate website at www.naa.gov.au complies with disability guidelines.

The Archives Service Charter commits to ensuring exhibitions and research facilities are accessible for people with disabilities. The Archives’ complaints and grievances mechanism is outlined in the Service Charter. The Archives has 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 on request by 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’ in relation to providing services or facilities for employees with a disability. Information on ‘reasonable adjustment’ is being incorporated into the Archives Recruitment and Selection Guidelines.

For the limited number of courses arranged and offered internally, information on disability issues is included where appropriate. In addition, arrangements were made in two cases to ensure that employees with a disability had their needs met in relation to training and development.

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

Charter of Public Service in a Culturally Diverse Society

The 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 within the records it holds. The Archives promotes records about Indigenous people, immigration, cultural groups and citizenship on its website, in research guides, and in a number of 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 continues to develop strategies to ensure that all employees have the opportunity to achieve their potential and participate fully in the workplace.

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 2002–03, and the current Employment Assistance Program contain statements and initiatives that support or reflect the principles underpinning the charter.

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 its staff newsletter.

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

External relations

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

This year the Archives published a report on the use of shipping containers and the construction of low cost buildings to house records. The report included the results of tests carried out in 2001–02 on the suitability of using a shipping container as an alternative records repository in a tropical environment. The test monitored conditions inside the shipping container (temperature and relative humidity) using two dataloggers, and the effect of these conditions on boxes of records stored inside the containers. The report was sent to all archives in the Pacific Region and will also be placed on the website of the International Council on Archives (ICA).

The National Archives is also involved in the international archives community through membership of the ICA. Ms Kathryn Dan, Assistant Director-General Government Recordkeeping, represented the National Archives at the XXXVIth International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (CITRA) in Marseilles, France from 11 to 15 November 2002. CITRA is the annual meeting of heads of national archival institutions, chairpersons of national professional associations and chairpersons of ICA sections and committees.

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 Archives hosted a Round Table of the National Scholarly Communications Forum in Canberra on 9 August 2002. The forum, titled Privacy: Balancing the Needs of Researchers and the Individual’s Right to Privacy under the New Privacy Laws, brought together over 60 privacy experts, scholarly researchers, lawyers, archivists, records managers, librarians, genealogists and government officials.

In September 2002 Ms Gabrielle Hyslop, Acting Assistant Director-General Public and Reader Services, visited the Public Record Office and the British Library in London for a series of meetings to discuss ways of making cultural collections more accessible to the public.

On 8 October 2002 the Archives hosted a summit meeting of representatives from the National Archives of Australia; the Council of Federal, State and Territory Archives; the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts; the Australian Society of Archivists; the National Library of Australia; the State Libraries; Australian Museums On-Line; and the Australian War Memorial to explore options for an online portal, the National Online Archival Network.

Mr Adrian Cunningham, Director Recordkeeping Standards and Policy, attended a meeting of the ICA Committee on Descriptive Standards in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, on 18–22 November 2002. The Committee meeting was held concurrently with a major international seminar titled ‘Electronic archival documents: management and preservation’ hosted by the National Archives of Brazil. Following the seminar, Mr Cunningham led a two-day DIRKS workshop for Brazilian archivists and records managers on 25–26 November 2002.

On 19 November 2002 Ms Kathryn Dan was invited by the Catalan School of Public Administration in Barcelona to present a seminar to over 100 archivists and records managers from the Catalan administration. The seminar was entitled ‘ISO 15489 and the Australian experience with standards’.

In January 2003, at the invitation of Mr Simon Chu of the Public Record Office of Hong Kong, Mr Steve Stuckey, Assistant Director-General Collection Management, presented two days of lectures on appraisal as part of a four-week Postgraduate Certificate in Archival Studies in Hong Kong. Participants in the course were from China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Malaysia. The other faculty members for the program were from Canada and the United States of America.

Dr Stephen Ellis, Director Preservation, represented the Archives at the Asia-Pacific consultation meeting of UNESCO on the draft Charter for the Preservation of Digital Heritage, convened by the National Library of Australia in Canberra on 4–6 November 2002.

Mr Robert French, Director Audio-visual Preservation, undertook a study tour of moving image archives in Scandinavia, Europe and the United States from 1 to 23 September 2002 to assess current best practice in storage techniques and preservation processing for audiovisual records.

In June 2003 Dr Andrew Wilson, Assistant Director Preservation, visited the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, USA, to give a presentation on the National Archives of Australia’s approach to digital preservation and to discuss digital preservation and recordkeeping issues.

The Archives participates 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 2002–03 the Archives showcased a number of Australian initiatives, projects and practices to representatives of overseas archival institutions. A list of visiting overseas delegations who met with the Archives in 2002–03 is at Appendix G.

In addition to hosting visiting archivists, the Archives presented papers to a variety of professionals on topics of current archival concern. A selection of papers presented and published in Australia and overseas is listed at Appendix H.