In accordance with Presidential Decree 31/PO of 1993 on the structure of the government, the Department of Archives is charged with (i) studying laws, regulations and rules on documentation to be further presented to ministers and directors of the Cabinet of the Prime Minister's Office for approval and enforcement; (ii) giving suggestions and stimulating ministries, agencies, provinces and the Vientiane Prefecture to carry out a centralised management regime of documentation throughout the country; and (iii) organising, guiding and planning for the research and introduction of scientific-technical advancement relating to documentation work and supervising and registering files and documents across the country.

The holdings of the Department of Archives comprise official government documents, books and periodicals dating from the French, Royal Lao Government and People's Democratic Republic of Laos periods.

The main archives building (a converted garage at the rear of the Prime Minister's Office compound) comprises offices, a reading room and the main archive of some 6,000 files of government documents, the oldest of which is a French-language boundary decree dating from 1898. The second building is located in the same compound several hundred metres away from the main archives building and houses additional offices, a room stacked with thousands of unused English-language school books imported in the 1960s by the USIS, a library of some 2,000 French colonial-era books and periodicals, and a store piled high with old government documents.

Currently being catalogued using an in-house computer database based on FoxPro, the archive of c 6,000 government document files (mainly from the Prime Minister's Office) housed in the main building is stored in a combination of modern movable shelf units and older metal cupboards. The library of c 2,000 French books and periodicals in the other building is also catalogued (by Dewey) and housed in glass-fronted wooden cabinets. However, both the 1960s school books and the government documents in the second building (both of which are in an advancing state of decay) are simply dumped in piles awaiting either inventory or disposal.

Neither of the two archive buildings is climatised, and high humidity has exacurbated the already serious problems of insect infestation and mould. Dust is also a major problem, and most books and documents are very dirty to handle. For this reason, whilst the State Records and Archives Department of Việt Nam has plans to repatriate various colonial-era records on Laos currently stored in Hà Nội's National Archives Centre 1, it has agreed to continue storing those documents until such a time as Laos has its own climatised building to house them in. Unfortunately the Lao government does not currently have the funds to build such a facility.

As the state records office of Laos, the Department of Archives is responsible for advising other government ministries and regional government offices around the country on archival matters, and its staff do make regular visits to other ministries and provincial government offices to advise on government record-keeping techniques. However, its stated function of 'giving suggestions and stimulating ministries, agencies, provinces and the Vientiane Prefecture to carry out a centralised management regime of documentation throughout the country' does not empower it to collect records from government agencies after specific periods of time. Consequently most ministries and provincial governments still maintain their own archives, conditions in which vary considerably from institution to institution. It is also reported that many senior ministry staff have taken important documents with them when moving to posts in different government offices, a practice which poses a serious threat to the integrity of government records.

In any case, housed within sub-standard facilities with no space in which to store additional records, and with much of its existing collection still to be catalogued, the Department of Archives is not currently capable of taking in and caring for additional government documents.