Manage your vital records

• What are vital records?
• How are vital records managed?
• Identifying your vital records
• Implementing strategies for managing your vital records
• Reviewing strategies for managing your vital records

What are vital records?

Vital records include records needed to:

• operate the organisation during a disaster
• re-establish the organisation's functions after a disaster, and
• establish and protect the rights and interest of the organisation and its employees, customers and stakeholders.

In effect, they are records that are essential to the organisation. Without them the organisation cannot establish, conduct or continue business effectively.

State Records has also released a Standard on Counter Disaster Strategies for Records and Recordkeeping Systems which is mandatory for the NSW public sector. For the purposes of that standard only, vital records are also seen to include:

• manuscript records of outstanding historical, cultural or symbolic importance
• records that have been identified in authorised disposal authorities as 'State archives'
• indexes and catalogues to these.

How are vital records managed?

Managing vital records involves:

• identifying and documenting vital records
• finding measures to protect them, and
• ensuring they are priorities for salvage in a disaster.

This management regime is effectively an 'insurance policy' against disruption to critical operations. [1] A vital records program is an essential component of a counter disaster program, which aims to prevent disasters or enable the organisation to attain business continuity or quick recovery.

Scope

Vital records may be found in any part of the organisation, and in records created in the course of administrative and core functions.

Example: Types of vital records
Client licensing records for a software firm may be considered vital because they establish the rights and interest of customers. Likewise, personnel records are vital because they protect the rights and interest of the organisation's employees.

Therefore vital records programs should be organisation-wide. However, some functions or business units may have particular risks associated with them so vital records programs may be implemented first in these areas.

Identifying your vital records

Steps A-C of the DIRKS methodology can be used in order to identify what records are vital.

Step A: Preliminary investigation

Step A provides a broad overview of the business of the organisation, who its stakeholders are and the business risk factors the organisation and particular business units may be subject to. This information provides a contextual basis for the vital records program.

Step B: Analysis of business activity

The main benefit of Step B for a vital records project is that you are able to understand your business and how it is documented in more detail. You can therefore start to identify which of the functions and activities performed are critical to the organisation in meeting its goals and strategies. You may then wish to prioritise these in planning for your vital records programs.

The records to support these functions may be identified during Step B interviews and will be considered in more detail in later steps. Through interviews you can directly discuss what staff and stakeholders believe are the functions and processes of most importance to the organisation.

Tip: Not all useful records are vital
It is common for staff and stakeholders to consider all the records they use to be vital to the organisation. You need to make it very clear to them that vital records are only those ones that are so essential to the organisation that it could not function without them.

Linking risks to the functions and activities you identify may highlight high risk areas with high consequences for the organisation if the information is lost.

Step C: Identification of recordkeeping requirements

The outcomes of Step C are critical if you are doing DIRKS in order to identify what records are vital to the organisation. The analysis of business and regulatory requirements and community expectations and the risk assessments performed in this step will help you to see what records are key to business operations and the consequences to your organisation of not meeting its requirements. This knowledge allows you to have a far better understanding of what is really vital to the organisation's survival and whether staff and stakeholder views on vital records are accurate. At this stage you should be able to produce a list of your organisation's vital records. You should have this signed by senior management.

Implementing strategies for managing your vital records

Knowing what vital records your organisation has is important. However, you still need to plan for how your organisation will manage and protect these records. Steps D-G of the DIRKS methodology can assist you in:

• understanding where vital records are stored and how they are currently being managed
• deciding on the strategies required to manage and protect these records further
• designing or redesigning the necessary components of your strategies for managing and protecting vital records, and
• implementing these strategies effectively in your organisation.

Step D: Assessment of existing systems

You can use Step D as a means to determine where vital records are stored and how vital records are currently managed in your organisation, and to identify means by which their management can be improved. You can examine existing systems and ask:

• what are the vital records managed within this system?
• how are vital records currently identified and managed within this system?
• is the current management of vital records within this system adequate?
• have disaster recovery plans been established for this system?
• do policy and procedure documentation adequately reflect vital records management requirements, including backup, copying or relocation requirements?
• are record storage arrangements appropriate? are there physical risks in storage areas or locations that can be mitigated or controlled?

If, after your Step D analysis, you determine that vital records are not adequately managed, you can implement Steps E - G of the methodology to improve your vital records management practices.

Step E: Identification of strategies for recordkeeping

In Step E you can use the knowledge gained from identifying vital records (Steps A-C) and assessing the systems in which they are managed (Step D), to develop a range of strategies that will enable your organisation to have better protection for its vital records. In this step you will determine which combination of the policy, design, standards and implementation strategies will allow your organisation to improve the identification and management of its vital records.

Example: A relevant mix of strategies
You may highlight the need to have regular risk assessments and a counter disaster plan to address actual and potential risks (requirements of the Standard on Counter Disaster Strategies for Records and Recordkeeping Systems). Staff training strategies will also need consideration. You may also decide on the range of strategies you will implement to protect vital records, such as backups or other forms of duplication.

Step F: Design of a recordkeeping system

In Step F you can design the strategies identified in Step E to ensure your organisation is better able to manage its vital records. It involves assessing each component of your systems to ensure that they will work in a coordinated way to ensure that vital records are identified and protected.

Example: Design elements of strategies
You might write the counter disaster plan, write or source the training courses, assign responsibilities and integrate them into position descriptions and procedures manuals and design how protection methods will work and when they need to be reviewed.

Step G: Implementation of a recordkeeping system

Step G - It is important that a vital records program be implemented effectively. To effectively protect these records in a disaster, staff need to be trained in their responsibilities and disaster teams in disaster management techniques involving the prioritisation of vital records. In addition, protection methods must be implemented appropriately.

Reviewing strategies for managing your vital records

Step H: Post implementation review

Step H - What is vital to the organisation will change over time, particular when new business processes are undertaken, or functional responsibilities change. You will need to work with organisational staff responsible for critical functions at regular intervals to continuously identify and update lists of vital records and you will also need to review protection methods and duplicates.

Further information

For more information about disaster management and vital records read the relevant steps of DIRKS and see State Records' Standard and Guidelines on Counter Disaster Strategies for Records and Recordkeeping Systems.

Footnotes

[1] National Archives and Records Administration, Vital Records and Disaster Mitigation and Recovery: An Instructional Guide, 1999.