About the project
PROV is planning to develop a new Retention and Disposal Authority (RDA) to replace PROS 07/01 Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of Common Administrative Functions.
The Common Administrative Functions RDA provides disposal coverage for common types of records relating to functions such as finance, human resources and property management. PROS 07/01 is currently our most widely used RDA in Victorian Government as it applies to all agencies.
PROS 07/01 was issued in April 2007 and has been only slightly varied since. It has been extended and has no set expiry date.
PROV's new approach to RDAs
In the years since PROS 07/01 was issued, recordkeeping across government has continued to evolve. In order to keep up with these changes, PROV undertook a disposal remodelling program with one of the main changes being the introduction of a new style of RDAs.
Previously, RDAs were written in a Function – Activity – Record Classes style. PROS 07/01 is an example of this style. PROV now endeavours to issue RDAs that are easier to develop and implement. One step of this is to introduce RDAs that are ‘rolled up’ which means that they have functions that are described in great detail, followed by a minimal number of record classes. There is no activity level and records with the same retention period are grouped together – sometimes referred to as ‘buckets’.
It is the aim that the replacement for PROS 07/01 will follow this ‘rolled up’ structure to streamline disposal and ‘future proof’ the RDA as much as possible.
Project steps so far
For the first part of this project, we previously put out a call for feedback on PROS 07/01. This round of consultation is still open and we are still very interested in gathering further feedback. Please submit your spreadsheet via email to agency.queries@prov.vic.gov.au. After reviewing the feedback we may contact you for further information.
Throughout August and September 2021, PROV also asked interested stakeholders to complete a short survey on which functions from the RDA for Common Administrative Functions should be prioritised for inclusion in a new pilot project to begin to redevelop and replace PROS 07/01.
PROV received a great response to our survey. Thank you to everyone who participated, as well as those who have provided feedback on coverage gaps over the past few years. From collating all of the feedback, the two stand-out functions voted for review were Personnel Management and Financial Management.
Given the size and complexity of both of these functions, we decided to focus on Personnel Management in the first instance. We will be combining this with some smaller, closely-related functions to come up with a rolled-up RDA pilot project covering all personnel-related records. The functions from PROS 07/01 to be included are:
- Personnel Management
- Occupational Health & Safety
- Industrial Relations
- Staff Development
Project update and next steps - August 2022
As part of the next phase of the pilot we are conducting interviews with human resources specialists across government, as well as with experts in health and safety and liaising with representatives working on the WOVG Human Capital Management project. This research will direct the appraisal and we aim to release a draft rolled-up RDA covering these four functions later in 2022. We are looking for expressions of interest from across Victorian government for interested stakeholders to review the RDA during this process. If you would like to nominate yourself to be part of the stakeholder review group, please let us know via email: agency.queries@prov.vic.gov.au
PROV will continue to provide updates on this project through this page, our blog, and via the PROV Bytes newsletter. We are also continuing to accept feedback on PROS 07/01, especially for functions that are not being reviewed as part of the 2022 stage of the project.
About the feedback we are seeking
We are still interested in your feedback on the existing RDA – what works, what doesn’t, what classes are confusing, what gaps in coverage are there?
Do you find it easy to use? If so, what do you like about it? Does it cover all of the common and administrative records you create? If not, what is missing? Do you have any problems using the RDA?
We want you to think about:
- the challenges you face in implementing PROS 07/01
- the structure, format, numbering and disposal triggers
- what records should be covered by the Common Admin RDA.
This spreadsheet breaks PROS 07/01 into each class (including functions and activities).
We ask that any feedback you have about a class is added to the spreadsheet alongside that class. There is also another tab in the spreadsheet for general feedback you may have or for feedback that doesn’t relate to any of the existing classes – gaps etc. |