Building a Recordkeeping Regime across Government

To finish, I would like briefly to note some of the more practical ways in which we are seeking to effect these strategies for building our recordkeeping regime.

Communication

Communication with Government agencies is a vital component in the process of building a recordkeeping regime. Like many other government records authorities, we have established a regular newsletter to keep records managers and other relevant agency staff informed about a wide range of developments in government recordkeeping in New South Wales. First published in February 1994, For The Record is issued quarterly and has a circulation of about 1200 copies. Currently only back issues are available on our Web site but we plan to start concurrent electronic publication in 1998.

Valuable as a communication medium like For The Record is, it still goes only one way. To provide a means of two-way communication with agencies' records managers, and indeed an opportunity for Government records managers to get to know each other, we established a Records Managers Forum in February this year. The Forum meets quarterly, with attendance at the two meetings held so far (at the time of writing) of about sixty people. An important aim is to involve participants actively in the business of the Forum, through open discussion, presentations and workshop activities.

Ownership

Improving Government recordkeeping in practice requires the people responsible at different levels and with different roles in agencies to be committed to the task. An important pre-requisite for such commitment is that they should have ownership of the policies, standards, codes of best practice and guidelines that make up a large part of the recordkeeping regime. One way of achieving this is to open up the process of developing these documents.

The development cycle for these documents includes one or more consultation stages, which can include releasing exposure drafts to seek comments and suggestions, forming working parties for varying levels of participation and feedback, and pilot testing. We have recognised agency CEOs as key stakeholders whose support and ownership will be crucial to the success of efforts to implement the recordkeeping regime. The CEOs Committee, a standing committee of 30 or so agency CEOs who meet regularly to discuss common issues, has agreed to review and endorse draft standards and code of best practice to be prepared under the new legislation. At the time of writing, a package consisting of many of the existing materials described above was being prepared for their endorsement in preparation for the new legislation.

Delivery

Once the policies, standards, codes of best practice and other documents have been authorised, they need to be delivered to people in agencies in ways in which they can be easily and conveniently used. The materials described above will be issued to agencies in the form of a manual, similar to the Public Records Office of Western Australia's Policies and Standards Manual, initially at the beginning of 1998. The individual documents are designed both to fit into the structure of the manual and to be able to stand alone, and will be available separately.

All the materials will also be available on the Archives Authority's World Wide Web site. Most of the existing materials are available there now in finished or draft form. We expect the Web site to become the primary method of delivering these materials to agencies, enabling us to exploit hypertext links to weave them together and make them easier to use.

The Archives Authority itself

The new legislation covers much more ground than traditional models of archives legislation have in the past. In doing so, it changes the nature of the Archives Authority as an organisation itself. We will become as much a government records authority as a government archives authority. This change is reflected in the new name proposed in the draft Bill, the State Records Authority, an approach adopted by similar bodies in some other Australian jurisdictions.

We already operate across the records continuum, but we will now do so in an increasingly integrated way. Thus, an important accountability of mine is to integrate the operations of the Records Management Office, which has traditionally operated very independently from the rest of the organisation, with those of relevant parts of the Archives Office. One obvious reflection of this change is the establishment of the Government Recordkeeping program, noted earlier, which incorporates the work of the Records Management Office and the Disposal Services section of the Archives Office.

We Are Not Alone

Finally, while I have focused on the work being done by the Archives Authority to build a recordkeeping regime for the New South Wales Government, it is important to understand that we are not trying to do all of this on our own.

Firstly, let us recall one of the principles that I noted at the start of this paper: that recordkeeping in the New South Wales public sector should comply with national best practice. It makes sense to make the best use possible of work done elsewhere representing best practice.

One important operating principle, then, is to adopt, endorse or adapt existing standards, guidelines and other best practice documents where possible. Obvious examples are the Archives Authority's endorsement of the Australian Standard on records management and of the Australian Council of Archives' common position statement on electronic recordkeeping, Corporate Memory in the Electronic Age. (41)

Another operating principle is that we should be active participants in collaborative efforts to produce common standards and other materials for use around Australia. This participation has included an active role in the development of the Australian Standard, through Standards Australia's 'IT/21 Committee', and in the work of Australian Council of Archives and the Council of State, Federal and Territory Archives. In addition we work closely on individual projects with the records authorities of other Australian governments, particularly the Australian Archives.

Moreover, we are not the only government records authority building a recordkeeping regime in its jurisdiction. I have already mentioned records management software standardisation exercises and the Public Records Office of Western Australia's Policies and Standards Manual. In Victoria, the Public Record Office has the power to issue standards for the efficient management of public records and to assist public offices in applying those standards to records under their control. The PRO has recently given this side of its role a boost with the release of exposure drafts of a range of standards and specifications and the endorsement of other standards. (42) The PRO has also reorganised to establish a Regulatory Services Branch to focus on the role of building a recordkeeping regime in the Victorian Government. In its review of the Commonwealth's Archives Act, 1983, the Australian Law Reform Commission has proposed a set of principles which would result in a recordkeeping regime with many elements similar to those which I have described for New South Wales. (43) In Western Australia, a performance examination by the Office of the Auditor General on the management of public records has made recommendations pointing in similar directions. (44) There is much room for government records authorities to help each other in this work.

Finally, I would note that our work in building a recordkeeping regime, like many other aspects of records and archives management, has important links with the larger world of information management and with information technology. We are all familiar with the need to build partnerships with information management and technology managers in our own organisations, especially if we are to establish effective solutions for recordkeeping in the electronic business environment. This same process has to take place at a higher level.

In New South Wales, the Government has developed a new vision for using information management and technology for improving the information and services it provides to the community. (45) Among the wide range of strategies for achieving this vision is the improvement of information management across Government, particularly through policies, guidelines and standards. As a major species of information resource, records have to fit into this structure. The Archives Authority is a member of the Government Information Management Division's Information Management Working Party, actively contributing to these documents, while the Division continues to be a valuable contributor to our work, particularly in relation to electronic recordkeeping. The Director of the Division is a member of our board.

A new role for a new era

In Documenting the Future, the Archives Authority identified the need to embrace a new role for a new era: '…to establish a sound recordkeeping regime across the New South Wales public sector and within each agency.' (46) This was written in the context of meeting the challenges of the digital age. In the two years since, it has become clear that this is not only a key strategy for electronic recordkeeping, but is the most effective means by which we can achieve the Government's fundamental objective of improved government recordkeeping. It is perhaps this role which most dramatically distinguishes the government archives authority of yesterday from the government records authority of tomorrow.

In embracing this role, the Archives Authority is in the process of reinventing itself. (47) This process can be as exciting and stimulating as it can be frustrating and exhausting. But that's another story…

Footnotes

42. PROFILE: Records Management News (Newsletter of the Public Record Office Victoria), No. 7 (July 1997), pp. 7-8. Return to text

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