Retention and Disposal

• Notice of a disposal freeze on records relating to children (December 2019)
• Retention of Records of Potential Relevance to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (January 2020)
• Retention of Records of Potential Relevance to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (January 2020)
• Retention of Records of Relevance to the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings (April 2021)

Records not described in a disposal schedule are called unscheduled (or non-scheduled) records.

All records created before 1960 are unscheduled records.

Unscheduled records need to be appraised to determine whether they are permanent or temporary. If they are permanent, you can transfer them to the Tasmanian Archives. If they are temporary, please contact us for a Destruction Authority so you can legally destroy them.

If you can’t dispose of a record using a disposal schedule, you may need to ask us for a destruction authority. This is a one-off authorisation from the State Archivist that allows you to legally destroy specific records.

Destruction authorities may be required for records not described in a disposal schedule or for damaged records which can’t be restored.

Please contact us to apply for a destruction authority.

Please contact us (see link below) for information on how to develop a disposal schedule.