Function and purpose

This artificial series consists of a master set of departmental briefs and briefing notes prepared by the Department for the use of Ministers and senior officials on official visits to foreign countries and when they are representing Australia at meetings and conferences of international organisations or official talks with other governments and also official reports on the meetings.

Briefs normally set out the government's objectives and provide background information on the issues, which are expected to arise during the meeting or conference.

Use of the briefs was not confined to the Minister or departmental officers. Multiple copies were printed and bound, not only for the use of all members of the delegation but also for distribution to other departments with an interest in the proceedings and to overseas posts for information. Australian delegations to international meetings and conferences produced a report on the proceedings, which was similarly printed, bound and distributed.

Briefs and reports were not registered, except for a short period in the 1978/1979, when an instruction was circulated by Central Office stating that all briefs must be submitted to the Departmental Registrar for a registration number before printing, which was normally done in-house until the 1990's. The abolition of the Registrar's position in 1979 put an end to this practice.

An effort was made by the Archives Unit from February 1979 until the mid 1980's to collect all surviving briefs into a single chronological run, imposing an annual single number system. The attempt was not very successful system because it was impossible to arrange for systematic deposit of briefs with the Departmental archives.

It was however, common practice for sections and branches to keep a run of their own briefs for several years and a considerable number of surviving briefs were collected, both from areas of central office and from overseas posts. These formed the basis of the artificial series created by entry onto a computerised database in the early 1990's.

System of arrangement and control

The artificial series was produced by entering all briefs and reports located in the Department onto a TRIM database with a year and single number.

The records are not arranged in strict date order within the year.

An alphabetical prefix 'B' to signify [Briefs] was also imposed by the agency in the 1990's.