International Council of Archives

I would love to say hello from sunny Melbourne, but unfortunately it is overcast here at the moment. Maybe the sun will come out later.

Allison Hunter

Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) is the State archives and records management authority for the State of Victoria. My name is Allison Hunter, and I am part of the Standards and Policy Team (which sits in the Government Services section of PROV). We assist government agencies with implementing best practice records management by providing principles, requirements, advice and guidance on specific aspects of recordkeeping.
Recently PROV completed a major project to update the recordkeeping Standards. Being over ten years old, the 1997 suite of Standards were no longer addressing the needs of Victorian government or in line with best practice records management. Times had changed and government agencies required more from Standards than vague motherhood statements of what to aim for.
The Recordkeeping Standards Project developed a suite of Standards documents around seven functions of recordkeeping:
1. Strategic Management;
2. Operations Management;
3. Capture (which includes creation);
4. Control;
5. Storage;
6. Access; and
7. Disposal.
The types of documents created included: Standards, Specifications, Guidelines and Fact Sheets. Each of these document types was to address a particular purpose.
The Standards were aimed towards management. They focused on identifying the high level principles, describing what was meant by the principles, and identifying some benefits that might be achieved through implementing each of the principles.
The Specifications were aimed towards those who needed to plan and implement work programmes. They identified the measurable requirements needed to meet each principle and provided examples of evidence so that agencies could demonstrate that the principle was met.
Standards and Specifications are mandatory for Victorian government agencies.
The Guidelines were aimed at those who needed to undertake the work. They were divided into two types: the first described a process from initiation through to completion and monitoring; the second provided an overview of different methods or approaches to doing something and why they may be used. Guidelines are ‘how to’ documents and provide information on how sets of requirements may be met, and products or programmes developed.
Fact Sheets are much smaller documents with two main audiences in mind: those who know nothing about records management and need to be reminded of their responsibilities; and those who are very experienced in records management but need reminding about PROV processes.
Both Guidelines and Fact Sheets are optional for Victorian government agencies.
Records managers are very enthusiastic people when it comes to the specifics of records and how to best manage them. Representatives from various agencies worked together to debate the most practical way of achieving something, determine the most useful definition for a term, and consider whether various concepts, methods and approaches identified in the Standards or Specifications would work in their agencies. The Recordkeeping Standards Project would never have been successful without the enthusiastic support and participation of our agency clients.
Now that the project is finished, work on implementing the Standards has begun. Initial focus has been on setting up processes to revise and adjust the Standards documents as part of ongoing work. Our aim is to ensure that the Standards and Specifications are a continuous work-in-progress so they remain up-to-date and relevant to our agency clients. The challenge will be maintaining the interest and momentum as other projects begin to compete for people’s attention.

Allison Hunter
Senior Officer, Standards and Policy, PROV
Secretary, Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia (RIMPA) Victoria Branch