Recruiting train, Rockhampton, 16-20 August 1915 – Digital ID: 26896
We’ve been talking about it for so long, but guess what? It’s finally here, the draft GRDS v8 for consultation.
The QSA Agency Services team invite you to review and provide feedback on the next version of the General Retention and Disposal Schedule for Administrative Records (GRDS).
We’ve listened to what you have been telling us and this is our next big step in making the GRDS bigger and better than before. But we need all friends, boys and girls to enlist and help us to get it right! Jump on the recruiting train coming to a town near you soon! We won’t be sending you to war, but to our website.
What have we done?
You’ll notice the draft version 8 is a little different…
- we’ve introduced ‘Common Classes’ which can be combined with any function undertaken by an agency
- the functions ‘Community Relations’ & ‘Government Relations’ have been merged and are now called ‘External Relations’
- the functions ‘Equipment & Stores’, ‘Fleet Management’ and parts of ‘Technology & Telecommunications’ have merged – now called ‘Moveable Assets’
- some ‘Financial Management’ classes have been streamlined
- the function ‘Information Management’ now has Publications and parts of Technology & Telecommunications
- there are some new record classes in the function ‘Legal Services’ and ‘Compensation’ classes have moved here too
- ‘Property Management’ has been bulked up
- the ‘Strategic Management’ now only has 3 activities – Implementation, Performance Management, Restructuring
- we’ve added new classes to cover recordings such as those made by body cameras and drones
- we’ve made minor changes (e.g. classes moved to Common Classes) in Industrial Relations, Work Health & Safety and Workforce Management.
But wait, there’s more
No, not a set of steak knives, but we have introduced a new generic trigger – ‘Retain until x after business action completed’. We changed the trigger from ‘Retain until x after last action’ as we think this trigger makes a better connection with the business needs associated with retention and disposal and is the clearest and least ambiguous term for implementation purposes.
We have developed a glossary to help define the terms and meanings of the more common disposal triggers found in the schedule. We were receiving queries about ‘what do you mean by “last action”’ so this glossary should help.
We’ve introduced unique numbering for record classes. When a record class has been given a unique number, this number will not change (we can hear the cheers of woo hoo!). This means we can make real time updates to the GRDS without agencies having to constantly upload new versions every time a new record class or function is added. Although, you will still need to re-sentence if the record class number has been retired (like some footballers). While there’ll be some short term pain in re-numbering your record classes on the release of version 8 to implement the unique number (for one last time), we’re hoping the long term gain will be worth it.
For the first time ever, we are also releasing the draft appraisal log along with the schedule. This provides information on the background to the record classes as well as legislative and business requirements. You’ll notice some are still under development and are more polished than others – this is exactly why we need your help! This information has been sourced from published sources but you are our business experts – if something does not correctly reflect your business requirements please provide your comments. This is especially true for those of you that work in local government, statutory authorities or government-owned corporations – in the past, the GRDS has had a heavy focus on State Government processes and, while we are working to change this, we may have missed some instances so please let us know.
We want you …
We’re recruiting your help to get us to destination GRDS version 8 and beyond.
You’ll see we’ve included specific questions in the schedule that we particularly want feedback on, but we’re also keen to receive feedback on anything in the schedule and appraisal log. You can provide your feedback however you like, using the schedule or appraisal log, by email or face-to-face.
What do you think about the retention periods? Are they just right, too short or too long? Please explain why you agree or disagree with retention periods as it’s easier for us to make a decision if there is varying opinions when examples are provided.
Do the scope notes make sense? If not, how can they be improved?
Will the glossary of triggers assist with implementation? Does it give you a better understanding of the triggers?
A caveat – this is a genuine working draft and some of the ‘see’ references and mapping from GRDS v7 (previous schedule info in appraisal log) might be slightly off. If you notice anything that is obviously wrong, please let us know in your feedback.
Another forewarning – during the GRDS discussion paper consultation you gave us so many suggestions for new classes that not all of them could be included in time for this draft. They have not been forgotten however and will be looked at for inclusion once this final version has come off the production line. We have included a list here, just in case you were already thinking about suggesting them:
If you have any questions or would prefer to provide face-to-face feedback, please feel free to contact us at rkqueries@archives.qld.gov.au or (07) 3131 7730.
The closing date for feedback is Friday 26th February 2016.
While we are officially open now for feedback on the draft, keep an eye out for more specific blogs on what we have been doing with the GRDS and opportunities to comment on the specifics.
Phew, that was a lot of info. Thanks for staying on board!
Sharon Mennis & Elizabeth Harvey
Agency Services
