Three federal government departments have been told to lift their game on keeping records to uphold public trust.
The Australian National Audit Office has found issues with the way information is being managed by the National Archives, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Australian National Maritime Museum.
Departments are required by law to appropriately manage all information created, collected, received and retained as part of government business.
But the audit found that since the maritime museum was established in 1991, it had not transferred any records to the national archives, making it non-compliant with federal archiving law.
It also found a previous audit's recommendation for the national archives to improve reporting had not been implemented.
The prime minister and cabinet department was found to have no electronic management systems for documents classified above 'protected'.
The audit office made eight recommendations for improvements, all of which were agreed to by the departments.
In its response to the report, the maritime museum admitted it "had not been able to prioritise information management in the last few years".
The museum said it experienced challenges to meet archiving requirements with existing funding levels, but said work was under way to improve.
"Limited resources has resulted in a focus on safety and the core museum functions of exhibitions, programs and maintaining the national maritime collection," the museum's response said.
"The ANMM is committed to improving its information management systems and has taken actions to improve ... practice within available resourcing."
