Paper less, digital first

Storage of physical public records is a significant cost for your public authority. Reducing physical storage is a practical savings measure and allows for efficiencies in your operations.

There are three stages you should consider when reducing your physical storage.

Location of public records

Public records can be stored in different locations, not just in your main office.  It's important to identify where your public records are currently located.

Some locations to check are:

• Basement or storage areas in your building
• Filing cabinets and drawers
• Third-party storage facilities
• Previous business areas or departments due to Machinery-of-Government changes

Types of public records

Ensure your public records are documented in a register.

You should determine whether an existing list, index or register is available and work from that. These may be physical documents in a filing cabinet or storage facility, or could be stored digitally in a database, spreadsheet, or an electronic document and records management system, also known as eDRMS.

Key information to help you identify the context of the public records you have:

• Date - this will help you identify public records you need to keep
• Who made them
• Contents

Disposal

The best way to reduce the amount of paper information your public authority is storing is to sentence your public records.

This process will allow you to go through what you have and decide whether it stays or goes.

Your public authority's retention and disposal schedule will instruct you on what physical records can be disposed, as the minimum retention period has expired.

It's important to dispose of public records on a regular basis to reduce your public authority's need for physical storage.

Your public authority is only authorised to dispose of public records where:

• Disposal authorisation or other legal authority exists
• A person has a reasonable excuse.

You should develop a disposal plan to ensure your public authority has proper coverage by documenting the disposal of public records.

A disposal plan will, at a minimum, detail:

• Approvals
• Destruction methods you will use
• Frequency