Vendors selling electronic document and records management systems (EDRMSs) have been doing some brisk business in Wellington as the nation’s bureaucrats grapple with the need to meet their statutory obligations under the Public Records Act.

The Act came into force in 2005 and is the country’s defining piece of legislation around the management and maintenance of the nation’s collective public records and archives.

In replacing the Archives Act 1957 and the document and archives provisions in the Local Government Act 1974, the PRA aims to recognise the significant technological advances in data management since the earlier acts.

The stated objectives of the PRA include to:

• promote accountability between the Crown, the public, and Government agencies;
• enhance public confidence in the integrity of public records;
• enhance and promote our historical and cultural heritage;
• encourage partnership and goodwill envisaged by the Treaty of Waitangi in relation to public records.

For government sector managers with PRA compliance issues on their to-do list, one of the key dates on their mind is 2010. That is the year when external auditing of their recordkeeping systems for compliance under the Act will begin.

A survey of central government agencies last year found their state of readiness for 2010 varied from one extreme to the other.

An updated survey was recently completed by Archives New Zealand, the department driving the Act’s implementation, but findings from the latest round of polling have not yet been compiled.

“The purpose of those surveys is not to name and shame but to provide a view of the state of recordkeeping within government and keep the awareness on a rising curve within agencies,” says Ken Spagnolo, CIO and group manager of information and communication services at Archives New Zealand.

“What we’re really noticing since the Act was passed is that people are taking it very seriously and doing a lot of work around what it means for their organisations – first of all understanding its implications, and then also building it into their work plans.”

Spagnolo believes there are lessons non-government organisations can take from the process the state sector is going through to meet its collective PRA obligations.

“The main one is that good recordkeeping is about good business and any organisation should keep good records of what it’s done,” he says.

“That’s not just in case you get called into court – at which point it becomes rather crucial that you have good records – but also about the management of your institutional knowledge. “Particularly in today’s market, people aren’t in jobs for life any more and you can lose institutional knowledge very easily. That’s not the only component of what is euphemistically called ‘knowledge management’ but it is a key component. If you don’t have documentation on decisions made and on transactions then how are you going to deal with the larger knowledge management question? That’s true for every organisation, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the public or private sector.”

And while the Act has meant good business for EDRMS vendors, Spagnolo says its reach is broader than just requiring government agencies to deploy a new electronic solution, or update their existing systems. Again, there is a lesson here for all organisations grappling with how to achieve effective records management.

“Records don’t only reside in recordkeeping systems. We’re not just talking about documents that people create, but also about information that might be held in other systems, which could be transaction based or could be something else.”

So, PRA compliance is not just about having an effective EDRMS, he says, it’s also about considering an agency’s other information systems from a recordkeeping perspective.

“The larger picture is that much of this is not even about IT. Yes, you can’t ignore that aspect but what we recommend to people is that this is a culture change project. I always say to my colleagues that if we approach this as an IT project we will likely not do very well. We need to approach it from a recordkeeping, HR and IT point of view – they need to keep those three things in mind,” Spagnolo says.

“It’s about creating a recordkeeping culture and this needs a comprehensive plan, a comprehensive approach within the organisation. You can’t expect to shunt it off to the IT group and expect them to solve this problem. They will put a solution in place but that’s the easy part.”

As champions of the Act, Archives New Zealand wants to be seen to be leading the way on meeting the compliance requirements, and above that demonstrating the power of deploying an effective records management system.

Archives New Zealand operates an EDRMS solution from local vendor Objective and is currently in the process of upgrading versions.

“We’re only in the midst of doing this, so I can’t really draw conclusions from the process yet, but certainly we’ve been putting into practice what I’ve been talking about,” he says.

“Our records manager, Toni Thompson, has been spearheading this initiative, as well she should, so it’s not even being labelled as an IT project. A significant amount of work has gone on in the last year just getting to the point where we’re starting this upgrade, of raising the awareness of recordkeeping and what our staff ’s responsibilities are – these are personal responsibilities for how you mange information within the organisation.”

Spagnolo says Archives New Zealand has addressed records management from a performance management perspective as well, with the department’s chief executive, Dianne Macaskill, working records management requirements into the performance agreements for her executive managers.

“One of the reasons we feel we’re doing as well as we are is because we’ve had really strong leadership in the organisation from the top, the chief executive has really spearheaded this initiative to up our game.”

That top-down approach is helping cement a records management culture within the agency, needed to meet the requirements of the PRA.

“There is an aspect of simple compliance but that’s not enough on its own. You can’t just tell people to comply and expect them to do so. You have to support them to understand what recordkeeping is about, to understand why, and of course how – how to use the tools.”

Spagnolo says the implementation process has also helped the department improve its wider business processes and workflow. “I wouldn’t say we’ve gone thorough wholesale changes, but in setting up our new business classification scheme we have had to have a review of some workflow and some business processes,” he says.

“It has helped us to document and understand these processes, and also probably break down some barriers between groups. Our records manger is learning in a more detailed way what each business group does and she’s taking that information around with her when she talks to others. We have found some opportunities to streamline and gain efficiencies.”

Mike Ross, New Zealand country manager of Objective, a major supplier of EDRMS systems to government agencies, says as well as seeing a lot of sales activity around meeting PRA requirements, the vendor is also seeing government departments increasingly realising the importance of effective business process and workflow systems.

“If you’re looking at return on investment, you don’t get a huge ROI from a compliancebased strategy. But from a business process efficiency gain and workflow-based strategy you get a huge return on investment from fixing business processes that are broken,” Ross says.

“So what we’re finding is that these government departments that are perhaps using the Public Records Act as a driver are certainly taking advantages of the workflow benefits at the same time.”

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By Simon Hendery