Records Management Network Meeting

Records Management Network meeting held 20 February 2002 at the Victorian Archives building.

Welcome

Ross Gibbs opened the meeting at 9:30 AM and welcomed the members. The minutes of the previous meeting on 10 December 2001 were confirmed.

PROV News and Reports

Advices to Agencies

• Emails as Records – to be issued in March
• Information on the impact of Privacy legislation on the Public Records Act will be issued soon.

Geelong Historical Records Centre

• Ross noted that the previous RMN meeting at the Geelong Historical Records Centre, was our first held outside Melbourne.
• Tracey Manallack (Archivist, Agency Services) has been seconded from PROV to the GHRC for one month.

Archives and Records Management (ARM) Week and the Hamer Awards – May 2002

• This year ARM Week will be held in May, and the Hamer Awards will be launched as part of the week’s activities.
• Activities for ARM week include seminars, an Open Day at Swinburne, an RMN meeting, and local government events.
• The success of ARM Week and the Hamer Awards is demonstrated by the RMAA looking at running similar events nationally.

Schedules

• The Local Government Schedule is due out in April.
• The University Schedule needs final agreement and should also be released near April.

Industry Support Program – David Brown reported that there is a lot happening with training this year.

• Training sessions for Agency staff (eg. Disposal Schedules, Recordkeeping Issues) have been arranged in conjunction with RMN meetings.
• The Industry Support Program has been advertised in PROfile and on the listserves.
• Discussions are under way with training providers to develop a Certificate 3 qualification in Business Services / Records Management.

VERS compliance

• Department of Infrastructure are going live soon with their VERS pilot.
• VERS training courses are being offered by PROV throughout this year.

"How we won a Hamer Award" – Russell Thomas, State Revenue Office

Russell Thomas from Infoman gave a presentation on the Hamer Award winning records management project at State Revenue Office (SRO). Russell was employed as a contractor in the Records Management area at SRO. The project, established by the Commissioner, was to develop a records management program for all records and documents received by or generated within SRO.

Russell explained that the premise of the project was to deal first with the ‘uncontrolled’ mountains of paper, but that the program also needed the ability to manage electronic documents. Previously in the SRO, there had been good records management activities taking place, but they were happening in isolation. There had been no disposal program for about 10 years. Initially three TRIM databases were operating in separate parts of the SRO, and the electronic revenue collection system ran TRIM in the background. The revenue system had been a separate project, but Russell pushed for the projects to be integrated.

The phrase "it’s not rocket science" became the catchcry around the organisation, as the project used basic records management principles to achieve its goals. Russell outlined how the project team achieved their goals. Some of the significant factors:

• Convinced the executive and management of the importance of the project – managers would not accept documents unless they had been appropriately registered and filed. The project reported daily to the CIO.
• Established user groups and designated super users.
• Held extensive training – in groups and one on one.
• Hands on implementation phase, with the project team doing the bulk of the file conversion.
• Post implementation, spent two weeks spent walking around the organisation, talking with users.
• To ensure ongoing success of the program, Records Management has been positioned at the right level in the organisation – a VPS4 position manages the program.

The next phase is to integrate the three separate TRIM databases, and to roll out a full EDM program.

"How we won a Hamer Award" – Ivan Sleeman, City of Casey

Ivan Sleeman from the City of Casey presented on their Hamer Award winning "Store to Door" project. This Archival Management Project has resulted in a major restructure of their secondary storage process and has produced significant cost savings for the Council. The Casey Council Records Management team won the bid for the project.

The Council’s secondary storage facility was in disarray, with many boxes unmarked and containing records with varied retention dates. Shelf space had not been used effectively and boxes were stored in a haphazard manner. The "Store to Door" project set out to improve storage efficiency, reduce the amount of space required, and improve retrieval rates. This was to be done within 18 months.

Ivan described the project as a simple, logical and methodical approach to achieve an effective method of record retention and scheduled destruction. Some of the specific points in the strategy included starting the process at the time records are identified for archiving, standardising destruction dates, educating staff, and implementing a central inventory database. As a result of the project all of the temporary records stored offsite have been identified, boxed appropriately, and entered on the database.

Outcomes of the project include dramatically improved utilisation of resources, reduced time spent locating records, and increased levels of confidence in the service amongst Council staff. A "Hitchhiker’s Guide" to the storage of archival records has been distributed to all departments within the Council. The biggest benefit to the Council is ongoing cost savings in time and space.

A copy of Ivan’s presentation is available on the RMN website.

VERS Toolkit – Kathy Sinclair, PROV

Kathy gave a presentation on PROV’s VERS Toolkit, available online at www.prov.vic.gov.au/vers/toolkit . The Toolkit has been developed as a model for electronic records management, providing a central point for support, advice, and information on electronic records issues. The Toolkit does not just cover VERS, but discusses a range of electronic records and information issues. It is consistent with other Australian models such as AS4390 and NAA’s DIRKS methodology.

Kathy highlighted some of the features of the Toolkit, including the online discussion forum and the e-record library. At the core of the Toolkit is the Step by Step Guide to implementing VERS in an organisation. The five steps, which have been adapted from DIRKS, are: decide to do it; determine what needs to be done; design the system; implement the system; and maintain the system. Within the Guide, information is provided at three levels:

• Overview – similar to an executive summary,
• Milestones – detailed project management information, and
• Foundations – a mini-library for each step.

Much of this material can be downloaded from the site.

The Toolkit can be used to get organisations thinking about the issues. The methodology in the Step by Step Guide does not require you to do all steps – some organisations might only use the first three steps. The Toolkit will see further amendments over the next few months, as comments and reviews are incorporated and improvements are made. Milestones will be added for Steps 4 and 5. Kathy is interested in feedback about the site, particularly anything that is missing, and what is useful or not. It is anticipated that the full production version of the Toolkit will be released in May 2002. Training in electronic records issues will be offered throughout 2002 – information about training courses is available on the Toolkit website.

Other business

The meeting discussed the issue of membership of the RMN, specifically whether private contractors from records management businesses could be included as members. Comments from the floor reaffirmed the importance of the RMN as a way of sharing information with government colleagues. Some members felt that with the increasing number of RM professionals working as consultants, excluding contractors from the RMN could lead to some people being left out of the information loop. However there was also concern that the RMN should continue to be a service for government staff, allowing free exchange of information.

The consensus of the meeting was that vendors and private service providers should not be included in the membership of the Network, with the following exception:

• Where a Service Provider is employed as part of the records management services of an agency (ie contracting out of record management services) that Service Provider should be able to attend the Network on behalf of the employing agency.
• It was also agreed that private contractors attending in such a capacity should not use the Network to actively seek business.

Next meeting

The proposed date for the next meeting is 22 May, at the Victorian Archives building

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