Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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ARCHIVES REGULATIONS (AMENDMENTS) 1991 NO. 159

Statutory Rules 1991 No. 159

Archives Regulations (Amendments)

Issued under the authority of the Minister of State for Administrative Services

Section 71 of the Archives Act 1983 provides in part that the GovernorGeneral may make regulations for the purposes of the Act, including regulations in relation to charges for the provision of prescribed discretionary services for persons other than Commonwealth institutions.

Schedule 1 Part 2 of the current Regulations details the discretionary services provided and the current rates of charges levied on persons other than Commonwealth institutions.

Although the Archives operates on a partial cost recovery basis only, the rates of charges are related to costs. The amendments proposed to the rates of charges in the schedule will increase charges in line with more accurate cost data and the past year's inflation rate. The overall increase in charges is 6%.

Two additional items are included in the proposed amendments to the schedule. The first of these is the inclusion of an additional category in the schedule for the serviced storage of unsentenced records (item 10). As a further implementation of the Government's 1988 decision this is intended to be an incentive for users of the service to formulate and implement sentencing programs for their records. Records which have not been sentenced may be stored indefinitely, thus incurring frequently needless costs to the Commonwealth. ("Sentencing" is the process of classifying records according to the period for which each record is to be kept.)

The second addition is the inclusion of a charge for the destruction of records (item 15). This will bring the charges into line with discretionary services for which Commonwealth institutions are charged.

The proposed amendments to Schedule 1 Part 2 of the Archives Regulations will ensure that the charges for services to persons other than Commonwealth institutions may continue for financial year 1991-92 at appropriate rates.

The Minute recommends that Regulations be made in the form proposed.