Capability

The Library’s approach to its strategic priorities relies on robust principles. The Library strives to ensure that every operation needed to deliver its aspirations is well considered and of high quality, especially regarding leadership, strategy and planning, people, information and knowledge, processes, governance, and product and service delivery.

The Library will benchmark the most significant elements of its operations against reliable comparators to establish baseline data. Priorities will be identified and resources allocated to areas of need to achieve organisational excellence.

Building the Library’s workforce capability will continue to be a corporate focus. The Strategic Workforce Plan sets out the Library’s approach to investing in staff. Leveraging the work of the previous strategic workforce plan, the Library will further develop digital competency and confidence, together with staff capability, especially in the areas of career sustainability and leadership. Over the life of this corporate plan, the Library will also focus on strengthening business acumen.

Risk oversight and management

The Library is profoundly aware of the responsibilities of stewardship of an invaluable, diverse and growing collection and a complex building, and of having a duty of care to its people and the public. The Library’s Corporate Management Group is responsible for identifying and managing risks associated with collecting, storing, preserving and making available the millions of items in the Library’s collections, and reports regularly to the National Library of Australia Council through its Audit Committee.

The Audit Committee ensures that there is an appropriate ethical climate in the Library and considers the appropriateness, adequacy, efficiency and effectiveness of the internal control system and procedures for risk oversight and management. The committee oversees compliance by the Library with those systems and procedures.

The principal risks and the strategies for their mitigation are managed through the Library’s Emergency Planning Committee. The committee provides a clear control structure to identify, monitor, respond to and mitigate risks that may affect the Library. The committee is guided by the Library’s Risk Management Framework. The committee and the Corporate Management Group are responsible for determining the Library’s appetite for risk, and developing and reviewing annually the Library’s Risk Management Register and the procedures and plans for significant business risks, such as the Collection Disaster Plan, the Information Technology Disaster Recovery Plan, the Business Contingency Plan for Critical Building Systems, the Business Continuity Framework and the Work Health and Safety Framework. The Library implements IT security measures (as a minimum to the ‘unclassified’ level) as defined by the Australian Government Information Security Manual.

The Library has contemporary finance and human resource systems that are supported by robust internal controls, documentation and staff training, and the organisational culture encourages all staff to be active participants in identifying and managing risk and working within the Library’s risk profile.