The Director General of the National Archives of Australia, David Fricker, has launched  a digital plan to overcome the Commonwealth government’s $200 million annual cost for storing paper records.

The Digital Continuity Plan has been developed by the Archives as a key element of a new whole-of-government policy that will see all Australian Government agencies change to a comprehensive digital information and records management regime.

Mr Fricker said in a digital world it was no longer feasible or practical for government agencies to continue to manage and store paper records.

“A survey conducted by Archives in 2010 showed that by 2014 the total volume of electronic records which agencies expect to create will be more than 10.7 million gigabytes - and that’s just the new records, not the overall amount of information that needs to be managed. This explosion in information means traditional paper storage of records is simply not an option.

“The benefits of digital records management include savings of millions of dollars in reduced storage costs. There are also substantial cost benefits relating to searching for and retrieving records and legal discovery and freedom of information requests. For the public, the successful transition by agencies to a digital environment as part of more open government will improve transparency and accountability.

“Despite these benefits and although all agencies now work in a digital environment, many continue to convert digital records to paper for storage and management, missing out on business and cost efficiencies.”

Fricker aims to announce a timetable for switching over to digital records management within a matter of months.

“We want to set targets to cut over to digital management, but I want to base it on good consultation with federal agencies and then our minister Simon Crean," he said.

“Some agencies are well prepared but others are a long way behind. In the next couple of months we will announce a jointly agreed target date, which has to be in the next five years.

Currently there is no imperative for Commonwealth agencies to manage records digitally.

“The imperative is to make sure records can be maintained in a format that can be accessed for the entire life of the information, there is no imperative to store them on any particular medium, whether n paper, microfilm or a videotape,” said Fricker

“Sometime in the next five years we have to draw a line that says from that date all records born digitally must be maintained and archived digitally, we cannot rely on printing them off on paper.

“Like it or not the business of government today is being conducted in electronic format, it’s in email it’s in the cloud, it’s on PCs. We need to have a standard approach across the Commonwealth.

“Printing email is still occurring, and it’s occurring for the right reasons. For some agencies that is the only certain method they have to ensure that record can be preserved because they don’t have a method to ensure that a digital record can be preserved.

“Twenty years ago we had 5 ¼ inch floppy disks, VisiCalc spreadsheets that nobody could read today. People have traditionally printed on paper because they know whatever the future of technology the paper will be readable, well that’s not good enough anymore, we are going to have a proper strategic approach to operating government within a digital environment.

"We have an explosion of IT infrastructure across the Commonwealth, we are already purchasing the information management systems, and so what I need to introduce the right set of policies over that infrastructure to ensure that the information being created there no longer needs to be printed to be held as a permanent record.

“I’m about saving money, not asking for more money. At the moment across the Commonwealth we spend in excess of $200 million a year storing paper records. That's a fantastic statistic and that’s what’s going to pay for this.”

The Archives is leading the implementation of the Government’s Digital Transition Policy in consultation with the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).