Records Management

The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) published new research on freedom of information (FOI) culture in Victoria and the importance of proactive and informal release of information. “The release of documents under the FOI Act is not the only way that governments can share information with the public” said Information Commissioner Sven Bluemmel. “Governments can also get on the front foot and proactively release information, without the need for individuals to first make an FOI request.” OVIC strongly encourages all agencies to adopt policies and systems that facilitate the release of information proactively and informally. Proactive transparency will help to build public trust, which will assist governments to address complex policy issues and improve service delivery. Read the key findings here.

Information Access Commissioners and Commonwealth Ombudsman have released the findings of their second cross jurisdictional study of community attitudes on access to government information. The 2021 Information Access Study measures citizens’ awareness of the right to access government information, and their experiences and outcomes in exercising that right. Key findings include: The importance of the right to access information is consistently recognised by respondents in each jurisdiction. The majority of respondents in each jurisdiction were aware that they had the right to access information from government departments/agencies. In general, citizens were able to obtain information successfully in each jurisdiction. Read the statement from the Commissioners or view the research findings here.

The Australian Government has agreed or agreed in principle to all 20 recommendations made by the Functional and Efficiency Review of the National Archives of Australia(NAA) referred to as the Tune Review. While the Tune Review recommended a proposed Government Information Management Model (GIMM), where records management across government would be centralised to the NAA, the Government intends as the first step to convene a committee to drive efficiencies and improvements in the short to medium term. Read the Tune review and the Government’s response.

Almost 300,000 records of Australian history including radio recordings of former prime minister John Curtin and a petition to King George V for Indigenous representation in Federal Parliament will be saved after a $67.7 million funding injection into the National Archives. The Tune Review, released in March this year said immediate action was needed to preserve deteriorating records in paper-based form, as well as magnetic tape audiovisual records, photos and film, to ensure they weren’t lost forever. Cybersecurity was also underscored as an urgent priority, with the collection of government records otherwise vulnerable to obsolescence, attack, compromise or loss.

The recently released Tune Report proposes a new integrated, whole of government model for information management and record keeping and for the storage, digitisation and preservation of government records across the Australian federal government.  The model seeks to generate efficiencies across government sufficient to support the necessary investment in digital capacity within the National Archives and other priorities. It has three tranches: A major investment in a new 5th Generation Digital Archive (5thGDA) that will bring the National Archives ICT systems into the digital age, enabling end-to-end handling of records from creation through to access A Government Information Management Model (GIMM), with the National Archives having responsibility for information management across Australian Government agencies, to support improved records management, to provide better compliance with the objectives set down in the Archives Act, and to escalate digitisation of the Archives records. This seeks to provide whole-of- government efficiencies A Centralised Storage […]

This article aims to generate discussion about strategies to improve information security – in particular to support people in appropriately handling sensitive information (recognising the human factor as one of the main weaknesses in security programs); leveraging existing systems and frameworks to enhance interoperability; and encouraging knowledge sharing between IG professionals across different domains. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. SUMMARY Both national security and crisis management require highly sensitive information to be securely shared between applications, individuals, organisations and jurisdictions. Vulnerabilities could leave agencies exposed to greater risks during a period with a high threat of espionage. Automation can support people sharing sensitive documents, to reduce manual handling and human error. This could be achieved by enhancing existing capabilities and standards, drawing on frameworks from both information security and records management. Geopolitics and COVID-19 bring renewed focus to cybersecurity Cybersecurity is a priority for all organisations, […]

After 37 years we can view the correspondence between the Governer-General and the Palace in the lead up to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. Watch National Archives of Australia Director-General David Fricker on the release of the Palace Letters – all 1,200 pages, here: https://bit.ly/300Kb0U Congratulations to Professor Jenny Hocking on the historic High Court win enabling the National Archives of Australia to release the records. The Palace Letters are now available to download as PDFs on the National Archives of Australia website.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner NSW has developed a fact sheet to provide guidance about the definition of record, in particular digital records under the GIPA Act and what it means for agencies. The fact sheet also outlines the importance of agencies maintaining good digital recordkeeping practices to ensure it is able to comply with its legislative obligations.

RIMPA Live 2019 was held at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, marking 50 years of RIMPA and its 35th Annual Conference.  It was a conference filled with a keynotes, plenary sessions and roundtables over the three days of the conference.  There were several keynotes including CTO and entrepreneur Gus Balbontin, Richard Foy, New Zealand’s Chief Archivist, information thought-leader Randy Kuhn Esq from the US and Kevin Sheedy AO, AFL Legend. The first fifty years of RIMPA The conference kicked off with David Moldrich Life FRIM outlining the history of the Australian recordkeeping profession and some of the key moments in the professions’ history such as the establishment of the Records Management Association of Australia (RMAA now RIMPA) and the development and implementation computer-aided records management systems and their successors the Electronic Document and Records Management System or EDRMS. David highlighted the contribution of the Australian recordkeeping profession to the state […]

  Information Governance is by its very nature interdisciplinary. Of course it needs leaders, but great information governance leaders are those that enable a multi-disciplinary team approach to thrive. This is best done by allowing the distinct approaches to information brought by members of the team to exist in both cooperation and creative dissent.  The organisational context and information culture determines exactly which skills are brought into the collective mix of information governance, but typically it includes compliance, risk, privacy, risk, security, recordkeeping, data management and analytics (and more in the American context, e-discovery). Each of these focus areas bring specific approaches to their patch of information governance – the trick is to get each to play to their strengths without drowning out or diminishing the important roles of others. Playing nicely across information disciplines is not a given, and fostering that capability is the skill of the information governance leader. […]