Does the Minister, or any member of their office, hold or store any official information relating to their portfolio or ministerial duties in private or personal email accounts, and if so, what steps are being taken to ensure that information is captured and retained in accordance with the Public Records Act 2005?

Answer

The deliberate use of a personal email account to conduct work activities as an alternate to using the work email provided to staff is not permitted. However, from time to time there are justifiable reasons for a private email to be used – for example an inability to print from their parliamentary email address while travelling or sending a copy of a press release to their private email to copy and paste to media via messaging because they are unable to copy and paste from Outlook. All ministerial staff have been reminded that if they have used a personal email account to complete work related activities, the material created or received may constitute a public record. The material must be reviewed and securely saved.