What Makes Good Records Management?

Conference 2010 S21 - Tuesday 11.30am

What makes good records management?
Clare Cowling (Senior Compliance Adviser (Information and Records Management, Transport for London) This session is intended as a round table discussion/debate on the theory versus the reality of being a records manager in the modern world. Some topics for discussion might include:

What is our job actually all about in today’s world? Is it:

Managing a records store?
Managing our organisation’s “official” records eg in an EDRMS?
Advising on the management of all of our organisation’s information?
Compliance?
Cost savings?
Improved efficiency?
All of the above? If so, which takes priority (we can’t do it all – can we?)

Do we even know what our job is about any more?

Where are we now?
Where do we want to be?
How do we get there?
How do we stay there?

Do we know what the key requirements for the most basic best practice in RM actually are today? Are they, for example:

Embedding RM in objectives or core competencies, and enforcing it through training, standards and guidelines and educating the managers?
Embedding RM in corporate systems at the point of selection eg automating disposal based on pre-defined rules, imposing destruction holds, classifying records?
Sorting out the ghastly mess of legacy and unstructured data eg email, shared network drives (ie fire fighting)?
Pre-empting future chaos - coping with Web 2.0, the cloud etc?
Do we have the resources and/or the authority to achieve any of the above? If not, how will we achieve our goals?

Clare Cowling, Solicitors Regulation Authority

Born in Australia, Clare began her career as an archivist/records manager in the Archives Office of Tasmania, moving on to... more...

Lawrence Serewicz, Durham County Council

Lawrence Serewicz has been the Principal Information Management Officer with the new unitary council Durham County Council since October 2009.... more...

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