Disposal

Public records must be disposed of when:

• they are no longer needed for administrative use by an agency, and
• the retention period they must be kept for under Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) standards has expired.

Proper disposal of public records reduces storage and other costs and helps ensure that records are preserved for the appropriate time period. Disposal can involve either destruction of records of temporary retention value or transfer of state archives to PROV or a registered Place of Deposit. Any destruction of public records by your agency must be lawful.

Disposal Standard

Issued by PROV, the Disposal Standard provides a set of mandatory principles for Victorian government agencies regarding disposal of public records.  Your agency is expected to fully comply with each principle contained in the standard by implementing the particular requirements as detailed in the relevant specification/s.

Guidelines

Note: These guidelines have expired but may provide some assistance for you:

• PROS 10/13 G2 Implementing Disposal Authorities Guideline
• PROS 10/13 G3 Destruction Guideline

Fact Sheets

The following suite of fact sheets will help agencies with understanding the transfer process to PROV and with completion of the transfer forms.

• PROS 10/13 FS1a Archival Principles, Series and Consignment Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS1b Brief Overview of the Records Transfer Process Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS1c Describing Series: Series Arrangement and Control Records Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS1d Describing Series: Common Series in Government Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS1e Describing Series: Series Date Range Creation Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS1f Identifying Records Creators Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS2a How to Complete a Records Description List (RDL) Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS2b How to List Records in a Records Description List (RDL) Template Fact Sheet
• PROS 10/13 FS2c Packing and Labelling Physical Records Fact Sheet