A $A1.3 million project by Australia’s Commonwealth Treasury in 2010–11 to use SharePoint as a portal to its TRIM EDRMS was never completed, symptomatic of the snail’s pace of adoption of centralised digital record-keeping at three government agencies examined by the  the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).

It found that “establishing effective records management, particularly digital records management, represents a significant business issue for many agencies.”

Some of the problems identified by the ANAO included duplication of records, inadequate paper‐based records management and failure to integrate data captured by more than 130 other electronic business systems.

“At an agency‐wide level, the agencies had developed generic records management policy and guidance to assist with determining the records that needed to be created, received or collected. However, at a business activity level there was often little guidance on the records to create and which records management system should be used to capture the records to support business, while meeting legal and policy requirements.”

All three agencies had extensive delays in transitioning to a digital records management environment. Customs has only now begun a $A220M plus project to upgrade its  information systems over five years, allocating another  $A8.4 million over four years to migrate from paper-based to electronic records management with Objective.

DIAC has allocated $A7.9 million over 4 years to records management projects although “a number of projects remain unfunded, including high priority activities.

“A $A1.2 million project was approved in 2012 to digitise archived paper records starting with human resource files; and a discrete project within the citizenship program is underway digitising specific citizenship microfiche and microfilm.”

“All of the agencies captured and maintained a substantial number of records in the core records management system; that is, in the paper based system at Customs, and the EDRMS at DIAC and Treasury. However, use of these systems was not as widespread as envisaged by the agencies’ records management policies, particularly use of the EDRMS at DIAC and Treasury.

Both Treasury and DIAC are HP TRIM users.

“Further, a number of other electronic business systems such as shared folders and email were being used within the agencies to store and manage records that were not captured in the core records management system. In all cases, the use of shared folders and email was contrary to the agency’s records management policy. In addition to creating and storing records in shared folders and email, each of the agencies used different electronic business systems to create or capture, and then manage, records. These electronic business systems often contained records that were duplicated in the records management system, but also contained unique records which were not captured and managed elsewhere.

“The audit found that Customs had not established minimum metadata requirements for other electronic business systems as part of its IT management framework. As a consequence, Customs’ electronic business systems examined by ANAO did not consistently capture key metadata elements.

“Systems used to manage records need to be able to preserve the integrity of information, including through quality control procedures to ensure the completeness and trustworthiness of records; and system controls over access and security. Many electronic systems that were not records management systems, such as shared folders, email, and certain electronic business systems, were being used by the agencies to store and manage records even though they did not have suitable records management functionality. In some of these systems there were insufficient controls in place to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the records they contained. Delays in filing information to the core records management system also exposed records to alteration and deletion, ultimately impacting on the integrity and authenticity of the record.

“A significant risk to Australian Government agencies in relation to records management is their ability to access complete and comprehensive information when it is required for business or legal purposes, including responding to Freedom of Information requests in a timely manner. For the three agencies, information and record access was impeded by existing information and records management arrangements. For example, information and records for a business activity were often held in a variety of locations and electronic business systems.

“Staff did not have access to all locations and systems, and generally had limited understanding of information holdings that fell outside of their day‐to‐day responsibilities. Staff often stored information in a variety of places, but did not have consistent rules about the records that needed to be created and where they would be captured. This means information is captured, managed and accessible on a silo basis. The agencies did not have a widespread culture of consistently using approved records management systems, including the EDRMS and electronic business systems, to support efficient and comprehensive searches for information.”

“Searching for and retrieval of relevant records presented difficulties in all three agencies. For example, the ANAO used the core records management system in each agency to assist with identification of relevant records to examine in the audit. Often a variety of terms needed to be searched before relevant information was produced. After using a variety of search terms, the
records identified generally did not represent comprehensive, authentic or reliable information. This was in large part due to records being held in other electronic business systems, such as shared folders and email, and inconsistent record titling practices.”

“Staff interviews in the agencies indicated many staff did not use the core records management system to access records, or used the core records management system infrequently to access records. Where the core records management system was used to access information many staff indicated that they experienced difficulty in locating information. This was often caused by poor titling practices in the agencies (for example, emails were saved to the EDRMS with their original title, or titles did not adequately reflect the contents of the file or electronic document). Many of the areas from which staff were interviewed maintained a separate list of files for their area to assist with finding information. A number of staff also indicated that they accessed records in other electronic business systems. However, staff did not have access to all locations and systems, and generally had limited understanding of information holdings that ell outside of their day‐to‐day responsibilities search through files that might contain relevant information. “

Barbara Reed, principal consultant at Recordkeeping Innovation, said “What comes through quite clearly in this report is that diagnosing and knowing about the records management issues which would assist the agency is not enough.  Problems and answers in this area are complex.

“Getting the resources and relative priority ranking to actually attend to the issues is the key, and despite risk assessments, and project planning initiatives, getting priority assigned to recordkeeping initiatives is difficult. And yet, in each of the agencies audited, significant funds (for records independently between $A1.3 and $A8.2 million over the next year).  Where sustained attention to digital recordkeeping has been absent, core business systems are identified as missing even basic capacity to document recordkeeping metadata, audit trails are inappropriate tools for recordkeeping and records are very vulnerable to alteration and loss. In the response of DIAC to the report, the prioritisation of a “$1.2 million project…to digitise archived paper records starting with human resource files…’  is a little ominous – sure hope that there is good ongoing business rationale for this, not that digitisation of paper records is being seen as a replacement for good proactive, forward looking digital recordkeeping!

“The report produces slightly contradictory messages – that recordkeeping is core for all agencies, that EDRMS is a fundamental tool for good recordkeeping, that EDRMS is not enough and staff don’t like it, that recordkeeping is not yet seriously funded to achieve outcomes that are required, and that the information governance layers of organisations are still very much emerging.  All grounds for reflection.

“The ANAO provides really sound backing of the recordkeeping endeavour of keeping authentic records of business activity.  It’s just not that easy on the ground! I wonder whether our recordkeeping skills, competency and professional capacity are keeping pace with the requirements of this world, and if not, what should we be doing about it? Can you confidently contribute to information architecture discussions, undertake data modelling, identify recordkeeping metadata requirements in business systems, write digital preservation strategies?  I suspect that, professionally, we have some work to do!”

The full report is available HERE