Catalogue description Public Record Office: Records Administration, Guidance to Departments

The present arrangements for records administration derive from the recommendations of a committee appointed in 1952, under the chairmanship of Sir James Grigg, to review arrangements for the preservation of records in government departments. Its report, issued in 1954, recommended far reaching changes in the process of selecting departmental records for preservation and in the organisation of the Public Record Office (PRO). The recommendations requiring legislation were embodied in the 1958 Public Records Act.

Under the "Grigg" system, responsibility for the selection and transfer of departmental records to the PRO is placed with the departments. Each department appoints a Departmental Record Officer (DRO) to care for its papers from the time they are created or first received until they are destroyed or transferred to the PRO. The PRO is responsible for overall co-ordination and supervision of the system.

This work was carried out until 1991 by the Records Administration Division (RAD). In 1991 RAD's functions were taken over by the new Government Services Division (GSD) which also took over responsibility for the production and updating of the Current Guide.

The division provides guidance to departments on every aspect of their records work and aims to ensure that there is a consistent approach to review decisions on public access, listing and other stages of the transfer of records selected for permanent preservation.