Update of Common Administrative Functions RDA

About the project

PROV is planning to develop new Retention and Disposal Authorities (RDAs) 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 and property management. PROS 07/01 is 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.

Project update – March 2025

PROV has spent the past few months researching and redeveloping the following functions:

• Financial Management
• Contracting-out
• Grants Management

As part of the research process, it became evident that by redeveloping the Contracting-out function to align with more modern Procurement processes, crossovers with the Equipment and Stores and Fleet Management functions were inevitable.   

Incorporating questions we have received over the years from agencies about the above functions, as well as precedent from other Australian archives, we have now developed a new, broader than anticipated, draft that is nearly ready for stakeholder and public comment.

As with the previous RDA in this project, PROS 24/03 Human Resources Management Function, this new draft is in our standard rolled-up style. The existing coverage in PROS 07/01 comprises over 100 classes, but the rolled-up approach will greatly reduce the total number of classes and be much simpler to implement for recordkeeping staff.

We are now consulting on the draft with subject-matter experts in finance, procurement, and grants. We expect the draft to be publicly available in May/June for anyone interested to review and submit their feedback. This will be advertised on our usual social media channels, but if you’d like to be included in the list of stakeholders and receive an email notification when it’s out for feedback, please let us know at agency.queries@prov.vic.gov.au

Project update - June 2024, including Project Plan

PROV is now planning the next stages of the PROS 07/01 update. We will continue to replace groups of related functions with new rolled up RDAs.

Given PROV needs to manage the long-term project to replace PROS 07/01 within available resources we intend to continue with a phased approach. The intention is to reduce the impact of change for agencies and a phased approach is also manageable for the PROV team.

This Project Plan outlines the future projects directed by stakeholder nominated priorities and the time frames for the PROS 07/01 update. Feedback about the planned projects and PROS 07/01 is most welcome.

The next priority for redevelopment will be Financial  Management and related functions including:
•    Financial Management
•    Contracting-out 
•    Grant management. 
 

We will continue to provide updates on this project page as the project develops.

Project update – March 2024

PROV is pleased to announce that the first stage of the PROS 07/01 update is complete: PROS 24/03 RDA for the Human Resources Management Function was approved on 19 March 2024 and is now available for all agencies to use.

This new RDA replaces four functions from PROS 07/01 relating to human resources. They have been replaced by the following five functions:
•    Employment Management
•    Health, Wellbeing and Safety
•    Industrial Relations 
•    Staff Development
•    Volunteer Management.

On the RDA’s landing page, we have provided a linking table to simplify mapping of  the former classes in PROS 07/01 to their PROS 24/03 counterparts, as well as advice on resentencing requirements. The RDA also contains a glossary of terms to ensure it is easy to interpret.

The RDA is in our now-standard ‘rolled up’ style, reducing the number of classes from 88 across four functions in PROS 07/01, to 18 across five functions in PROS 24/03. We hope this will make sentencing and disposal easier.

PROV would like to thank everyone who assisted in this process, from the HR subject-matter experts who agreed to interviews early in the process, to the many representatives from across Victorian government who took the time to read the drafts and submit their feedback.

PROS 07/01 has also been varied to remove the original functions. They all now direct readers back to PROS 24/03. You can find the most up to date version of PROS 07/01 here.

More feedback on PROS 07/01 to share?

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).

Modernising 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.