Yusuke Ohki

The term ‘appraisal’ is added in revised ISO 15489 and it defines the term as ‘the process of evaluating business activities to determine which records need to be created and captured and how long the records need to be kept’. This article discusses the meaning of ‘appraisal’ in the ISO 15489 : 2016 and the procedures in the ISO 21946 : 2018, and the practice in Archives New Zealand, such as a procedural manual for the appraisal process, an appraisal report and a disposal authority. Based on the consideration of the International Standard and Archives New Zealand, this article concludes with a discussion about the documentation of the process of making a disposal authority, which needs to be accountable and transparent.

We researched what a recordkeeping system supporting accountability is and how archives play a role in it from the viewpoint of the Public Records Act in Australasia. In Australia, state government corruptions occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, which revealed the connection between corruption and their records mismanagement. From those experiences, they established or amended the Public Records Act for improving government accountability. We found that the recordkeepersʼ roles are separated by some authorities（such as minister, archivist, and advisory council）and they have functions for checks and balances in the acts. In the recordkeeping system, archives play the important role of supporting accountability, such as standard setting, facilitating, monitoring,and being the watchdog, in the government records management.