New South Wales Consolidated Acts

STATE RECORDS ACT 1998 - SECT 52

52 Deciding whether to open or close records to public access

(1A) When making an assessment as to whether records should be open or closed to public access under this Act, a public office must have regard to the presumption that State records in the open access period should be open to public access under this Act.

(1) An assessment by a public office as to whether records should be open or closed to public access under this Act should be made on the basis of the known or likely contents of series, groups or classes of records. The assessment should not be made on the basis of the contents of individual records unless the public office considers that such an assessment is warranted.

Note--: Assessment of records on an individual (record-by-record) basis is generally considered to be unworkable because of the volume of records involved. Assessment by series, group or class offers a workable "risk-managed" assessment procedure.
It is intended that existing Cabinet documents are to continue to be examined to determine whether they contain sensitive personal or commercial-in-confidence information, and that Cabinet documents that may contain any sensitive personal or commercial-in-confidence information will be marked to be returned to The Cabinet Office for assessment under this section.

(2) Within the constraints of an assessment by series, group or class, the assessment should be cautious.

Note--: The need for risk management is recognised, so the assessment should not be overly cautious.

(3) The Attorney General is to issue guidelines to public offices with respect to the matters to be taken into account when considering whether records should be open or closed to public access. The Attorney General is to review the guidelines under this section from time to time.

(4) Public offices must have regard to the guidelines under this section but the guidelines do not limit the grounds on which a public office can open or close records to public access under this Act.

Note--: The guidelines can only relate to the types of matters that indicate a need to open or close records to public access, not to the means of assessing record content. That is, the guidelines must not interfere with the general requirement that records be assessed by series, group or class.