Establishing a high standard for electronic records management within the Australian public sector

Using as its basis the Australian Records Management Standard (AS 4390 – now superseded by the International Records Management Standard, ISO 15489), the National Archives of Australia (NAA) has developed an extensive range of detailed and practical standards, guidelines, policies and manuals to assist Australian public sector organisations to implement strategies to make and keep full and accurate records. The NAA committed to this course of action in response to evidence of widespread poor record keeping in the Australian Government, the result of changes to work practices in the public sector including the spread of electronic business systems and the devolution of managerial responsibility. This article describes the major components of the “e‐permanence”’ suite of best practice record keeping guidance and discusses implementation strategies pursued by the Archives in support of these products.