What happens to our nation’s records?
Every day, each New Zealand public office (ie. central government) creates or receives an enormous number of records. It is not practical or necessary to keep every individual record. However, it is important to identify and preserve those records that:
Appraisal is the process of identifying the records that should be retained permanently as public archives and those records that should be destroyed once an organisation's business and accountability requirements have been met.
Disposal is the range of processes associated with implementing records retention, destruction or transfer decisions which are documented in a disposal authority.
Section 4 of the Public Records Act 2005 outlines the possible types of disposal as: the transfer of control of a record; or the sale, alteration, destruction, or discharge of a record.
Under the Public Records Act 2005, no one may dispose of a public record without authorisation from the Chief Archivist, Archives New Zealand.
Archives New Zealand has an open and transparent process in place which ensures that members of the public are able to:
Once this process is complete, the Chief Archivist issues a disposal authority for the records to the public office. All current Disposal Authorities can be accessed via Archway.
Information for public offices can be viewed at Records Appraisal and Disposal.
Information for local authorities can be viewed at Advice for local authorities.