Corporate Records Management Branch

2.5 Office of Primary Responsibility (OPR)

The retention and disposition requirements for records that are duplicated in central service or headquarters branches and field offices normally differ.  In recognition of these differing requirements, every ARCS primary contains two statements regarding the levels of responsibility for records within an ministry or agency (known as the "unless and except statements").

For each primary, ARCS distinguishes between the office having primary responsibility for a category of records (OPR) and all other offices which hold copies of the same records (non-OPRs).  The OPR is the office that has been designated the holder of the official record for the ministry.  The OPR maintains the official or master record in order to satisfy long-term operational, financial, legal, audit, and other requirements.  All other offices holding duplicate copies are non-OPR offices and maintain their copies for a shorter retention period.  All non-OPR retention periods and final dispositions are underscored.

In the sample primary, the Unidentified Flying Objects Branch is the OPR.  All offices holding records covered by this primary are non-OPR.

For some primaries, more than one OPR may be assigned.  For example, in ARCS 202 COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONS, the OPR is the office responsible for secretarial and coordinating functions; for some ministries and agencies, this will involve two separate offices.

For secondaries that have retention or disposition requirements different from the default retention and disposition values established for the primary, the OPR and/or non-OPR retention periods are listed in the columns to the right of the records classification.

Offices that have primary responsibility for the retention and disposition of records classified in each primary are responsible for retaining those records as the OPR.  The Records Officer is responsible for ensuring that OPR offices are designated and notified that they are to retain those records as the OPR.  The Records Officer will on an ongoing basis notify CRMB of changes to OPRs as reorganizations occur.

ARCS is designed for the administrative records of government ministries and agencies.  Therefore, all OPRs should be an office or branch within the relevant ministry.  Central agencies (such as Queen's Printer, Office of the Comptroller General, Purchasing Commission) may also retain copies of some of the records retained by ministry OPRs.  However, the records of these agencies are operational records essential to a government-wide administrative function.  They are scheduled separately under those agencies' ORCS.