Annual Report: 2004-2005

Over the years, since 1998, significant intellectual, policy, financial and human resources have been brought to bear on what was recognized as a crisis in the government’s records management. As is often the case in large organizations, momentum for action came from scandal and public exposure of records management shortcomings, such as: inability to find important records; failure to create an accountability paper trail; failure to establish and respect retention and disposal rules appropriate to different types of records; failure to accord appropriate security to sensitive records; and failure to build and maintain centralized, indexed systems of records which capture all forms of recorded information including electronic records, such as e-mail exchanges.

In recent years, governments and public servants are coming, albeit slowly, to the realization that good record-keeping is essential to good, accountable governance. Conducting government business in an oral culture (in the belief that the rigors of accountability through openness can be avoided) is not as comfortable for officials as originally thought. It has come to be seen as fraught with danger: that capable, honest officials may be put at the mercy of the versions of events recounted by officials who are incompetent, dishonest or embarrassed by their predicaments; that the authority for action may not be provable when challenged; that government decisions will not be fully informed by past experience and that there will be no continuity of knowledge when officials resign or retire.

A very positive, tangible illustration of this changing attitude was the adoption, in 2003, by the government of a new policy on the management of government information. For the first time, officials are required (only, so far, by policy) to create records to document their decisions, actions, deliberations and transactions. While it is true that this requirement is not well known in government and not broadly respected – especially by senior officials – it marks an important development.

Indeed, throughout government, there are a myriad of initiatives underway to tackle the crisis of information management. These efforts need focus, coordination, senior level support, resources and analysis in order to be pulled together into a government-wide solution (or set of solutions). That is the next challenge for an already impressive effort.