All staff in your organisation have different roles and responsibilities. Some responsibilities may be particular to a position or section while others are the responsibility of all staff. For example, the pay team is responsible for making sure that everyone gets paid on time, but all staff are responsible for making sure that the team are aware of changes to their normal salary.

All staff, contractors and consultants are responsible for documenting their work, but there are additional groups which have been identified by the National Archives as having specific records responsibilities. 

This page is based on the Archives’ Capability Framework which sets out the roles and responsibilities of:

• All staff, contractors and consultants
• Senior management
• Information and communication technology personnel
• Information and records management personnel

It is useful for:

• senior executives and managers who are responsible for assembling teams, allocating resources and for making sure that staff under their direction fulfil their responsibilities
• human resources staff who are involved in recruitment and staff skills assessment and training
• information and records management staff who manage the records of an agency, create policies and guidelines relating to records, or who train in records related matters

This group includes all staff, contractors and consultants employed directly by your agency, or employed to provide services to your agency.

All staff are responsible and accountable for making and keeping good records of their work-related activities.

All staff, contractors and consultants have the following roles and responsibilities:

• Understand that good information management is essential to agency business and government accountability
• Have sufficient understanding of the importance of records and accountability to make judgements where situations are not explicitly covered in policies and procedures
• Know what their work group and agency information and records management policies and procedures are
• Follow these policies and procedures to document and capture evidence of their work to the specified standards
• Use records and information to meet agency obligations
• Encourage their colleagues to do likewise

Some practical things your agency can do to support its staff in these roles and responsibilities

• Inform and train your staff in their records responsibilities
  • adapt and present the Keep the knowledge training package for your agency
  • present regular training sessions in the records requirements of government, your agency and each section within it
  • make sure staff have access to clear and easy-to-follow procedures
• Make systems which capture records easy to use, both to store and retrieve information
• If your agency has particular problem areas, such as email, develop specific business rules, policies or procedures to assist staff in this area
• Include records and information management responsibilities in performance management agreements
• Reward good records management

This group includes the head of an agency, members of the executive, the Chief Information Officer, senior executives and managers.

In addition to the responsibilities of all staff, senior management are responsible for leading the agency. They design agency structure, allocate resources and manage outputs. Senior management have the following roles and responsibilities:

• Recognise the importance of information and records management to their agency
• Help the program to succeed by
  • endorsing policies and procedures
  • directing the agency staff to use those facilities available to them
  • allocate roles and responsibilities to agency staff
  • ensuring that staff understand their roles and responsibilities
  • making sure that staff are fully trained in the application of those facilities
• Provide appropriate resources for all aspects of the program. This means that there will be sufficient numbers of skilled people and appropriate information management infrastructure within the agency to ensure the program can run effectively
• Seek and act on the advice of those skilled people when required
• Foster the establishment and maintenance of working partnerships among senior managers, information and records managers, and information and communication technology staff in order to develop, review and implement business technology systems that support the creation and management of authentic and reliable records

Some practical things your agency can do to support its staff in these roles and responsibilities

• Distribute It is your business! to senior management
• Provide records and information management advice which is tailored to your agency and relevant to the situation
• Use Check-up to conduct an assessment of records and information management in your agency, and provide this information with a prioritised, risk-based listing of improvement projects
• Read the Management Advisory Committee Report no 8 on Recordkeeping.  

This group includes systems analysts, business analysts, web content developers, application developers and database administrators as well as staff from other areas who are the business owners of agency systems.

In addition to the responsibilities of all staff, information and communication technology professionals are responsible for creating and maintaining the technological infrastructure which supports the agency.  Information and communication technology staff have the following roles and responsibilities:

• understand that applications and systems need to have appropriate functionality for capturing and managing the evidence of agency business
• work cooperatively with IRM professionals to design, implement and improve the records management capability, information architecture and accessibility of information within business systems
• consider the significant risks involved if records are not managed properly for as long as is required
• provide input to strategic frameworks for managing information across the agency

Some practical things your agency can do to support its staff in these roles and responsibilities

• Include IRM staff on project boards for major ICT projects, and participate on IRM project boards
• Include an assessment of RM functionality in testing regimes
• Incorporate these capabilities into selection criteria for new staff, or use them to guide training and development plans for existing staff
• Encourage staff to undertake relevant training such as in:
  • Business informatics
  • Information services
  • Systems approach to managing government information

This group includes information and records managers, knowledge managers, archivists and information analysts.

In addition to the responsibilities of all staff, information and records management professionals have the following roles and responsibilities:

• demonstrate information management knowledge and experience by gaining appropriate qualifications in the field and keeping up to date with new developments
• understand the strategic and regulatory environment of information management within the Australian Government
• analyse agency business functions, identify information management requirements, assess risks and apply results to the development, operation and review of agency business systems and processes
• influence and persuade stakeholders to incorporate information and records management requirements as part of the design and development of new business processes and procedures
• integrate information management expertise and strategic business skills to develop policies, standards and systems to support business outcomes
• ensure that adequate documentation, training and advice on information management, as it pertains to their system, is provided to staff who require it
• work cooperatively with ICT professionals to design, implement and improve the records management capability, information architecture and accessibility of information within business systems
• support and train agency personnel at all levels to ensure that records and information systems are used appropriately and all personnel are aware of their responsibilities

Some practical things your agency can do to support its staff in these roles and responsibilities

• Encourage staff to undertake relevant training such as the Archives’ Introduction to Records Management in the APS or other training courses endorsed by the Records Managers Association of Australasia (RMAA) or Australian Society of Archivists (ASA)
• Join the RMAA, ASA, Institute for Information Management (including list-servs) and other relevant professional bodies so they can communicate as a group about current IRM issues and be aware of continuing professional development opportunities
• Encourage your staff to read the Archives’ e-bulletin and attend information forums to hear how we can help, and to network with other IRM staff in the Australian Government

All staff need to know what their role and responsibilities are. This document sets out these broad responsibilities in relation to information and records management and can be used in conjunction with other products, such as the Australian Public Service Commission’s Integrated leadership system.

Developing capabilities to meet these roles and responsibilities is an ongoing challenge. The next step for the National Archives is assisting agency staff to meet the requirements outlined in this document. We are planning to do this by keeping our products and services updated including Keep the Knowledge and our in house training courses, as well as by producing new publications such as It is your business!

We see good records and information management being the result of strong interaction between people, policies, procedures and guidelines and business information systems (technology). This page is designed to help address the needs of your people, but we also have products which will help with the other parts of a good system.

The majority of information presented by the National Archives is at an overview level and generic for use across the Australian Government. The National Archives can then work collaboratively with agencies to modify these foundation documents to meet the specific needs of the agency. 

Products for people

• Keep the knowledge
• Qualifications for Records Managers
• It is your business!
• Training

Products for policy, procedure and guideline development

• Normal administrative practice NAP
• How to develop a recordkeeping policy

Products for business information systems development

• Specifications for Business Information Systems Software
• Guidelines for Implementing the Specifications for Business Information Systems Software
• Guidelines for Implementing the Specifications for Electronic Records Management Systems Software
• Specifications for Electronic Records Management Systems Software
• DIRKS steps D-H

Products for compliance testing

• Check-up
• Records and the law