ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE
10. Among the so-called policy files on the Administrative Staffing section is an omnibus file running into several volumes containing applications from unsuccessful candidates for jobs advertised during the recruiting campaigns. We recommend that in future all applications should in the first instance be kept ephemerally in boxes or folders and a record kept of their receipt, but the papers should not be given full registration. Applications
from successful candidates should be given PF files as at present and any short-listed applications which need to be retained for future consideration should then be registered in the normal way. The remainder should be kept for, say, one year and then destroyed.
11. We were surprised to find a backlog of work on the Administrative Staffing section. This must be brought up to date without delay.
12. We noticed that file jackets are being made out at the request of departmental officers, who are putting papers unregistered inside the jackets. These papers are being registered when the files eventually return to the Registry. This practice is contrary to registry procedures and should cease. Papers must always be registered before they are placed inside file jackets.
13.
No Precedent Record is maintained in this Registry (see DSP Volume 12, Part B, Appendix XVII). Desk Officers may wish to consider whether such a record would be of assistance in the retrieval of useful files.
GENERAL
14.
There are three security cupboards of ODM PF files, some of which do not appear to be in use at present. We recommend that any files which are not required for current reference purposes should be returned to the ODM.
15. Although, as recommended in the last Inspection Report, the INDIV files have been moved out of the Registry, we noticed that individual files are being passed through the Registry and, indeed, that a number were lying in a Registry cupboard awaiting return to the Department. We recommend that INDIV files should not normally be routed via the Registry.
16. Copies of papers already registered elsewhere are being registered on the files. We recommend that greater discrimination should be made between papers which must be kept on files and those which should more properly be regarded as working papers and destroyed when no longer of use.
ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE
/WEEDING
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