NZ Knowledge Management Network

The Public Records Act is a good piece of legislation that merely states what good recordkeeping in a government that is transparent and accountable will do.  It is such good common sense that we shouldn’t need legislation to make it happen.  However, the audits that quantify PRA compliance are causing many government agencies to lift their game and take recordkeeping more seriously.

I have found that Records managers are facing about 11 challenges related to the PRA. They include:

1. Senior Management is unaware of PRA compliance needs.  CEOs have many laws and regulations they have to comply with.  Generally they hire someone, delegate the work to the employee with performance monitoring and feel they’ve covered their responsibilities.  However, the PRA changes the way everyone does their jobs…including the CEO.  So, more is required of a CEO.

2. Some people feel the PRA with its associated standards are so impractical they just ignore it.  They are doing nothing towards becoming compliant.

3. Defining which systems the PRA applies to presents a challenge.  The standards state they apply to “business-critical systems” but how are those defined?  Although EDRM systems are obvious, there are questions around Case file systems, FMIS, HRIS, Client relationship management, Web content and authoring, email, email archiving, social networking web 2.0.  It might be better to think about the systems that carry the greatest risk of misuse and would come under the greatest scrutiny if the agency should end up in court and the usability of the records that system creates or stores as evidence be in question.

4. Some senior managers appear to think that their EDRMS is the Silver Bullet for PRA compliance needs.  I admit they go a long way to help meet compliance needs, but no system can do everything to meet all the PRA requirements.  Every requirement not automated has to be done manually so the way people do their jobs has to change.  Business processes have to change.

5. Some government agencies have succumbed to vendor hype…those people who say their system can automate everything required by the PRA when none of them really can.  Test the system and discover all the things it can’t do that people will have to do manually.  Think about what your people are willing to do manually without resistance.

6. Several government agencies have bought the EDRMS and it was badly implemented.  The preparation work of defining and configuring security settings, retention settings, file plans, etc. weren’t done correctly.  It didn’t meet the needs of the agency and therefore the end users resisted using it.

7. A mandatory standard states: “Recordkeeping must be assigned to all public servants who create or handle records.”  Very few public servants would be exempt.  There will be staff resistance to doing the extra work as public servants say, “I just want to do my job, not these extra tasks added on top of everything else they have to do.”  They are not aware that it is now their job to do the recordkeeping extra tasks. 

8. Recruiting Records Managers has been difficult as there is high demand and low supply.   Some senior managers seem to think that just anyone can do that job and give the work to people who do not have the right skills.

9. In the lead up to the 2010 audits, many government agencies are hiring Records Managers on fixed term contracts that expire in 2010.  They seem to think that all they need is a person to prepare them for the first audit and none other afterwards.  What is the likelihood of such a charismatic change manager getting all the public servants to change their work habits and those changes be embedded once the person leaves at the end of their contract?

10. No Treasury vote has been allocated for PRA compliance readiness therefore there are no extra funds in the budget of government agencies.  It must be done with existing budgets. 

11. Will the Auditors help the Records Managers?  Some RMs have been trying for a very long time to get their employers to change the business processes, etc. to get staff to do their work in PRA compliant ways.  They’ve wanted to get the recordkeeping messes their agency makes cleaned up but are not supported by their managers to give them resources for achieving that.  They feel like no one listens to them.  So with the external auditors coming, they want the auditors to find these problems they’ve wanted to fix and it appear in the auditor’s reports.  They want the auditor’s report to give a consistent message to what they have been saying but being unheard.

     

The converse is that some Records Manager might try to hide all the agency’s weaknesses so the auditor finds all is well as it will indicate the records managers are successful in their jobs.  How well will the auditors find what is hidden?

There may be other challenges being faced, but these are the ones I am hearing about amongst colleagues around Wellington.  If you are facing some of these challenges, you are not alone.