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Government agencies are beginning to recognize that information is a major element in management and decision-making. The emergence of modern reproduction, data processing and transmission techniques is leading to a constant increase in the amount of information to be handled. The introduction of a records management programme calls for integrated measures for the creation, organization, processing, retrieval and selective storage of this information. Failure to establish such a programme both entails astronomical retrieval and storage costs and hinders optimum decision-making. It also makes the job of selecting documents of lasting value for the archives of a government agency more laborious and arbitrary.
The implementation and day-to-day administration of a records management programme depends to a large extent on the existence of regulations, i.e. a handbook of directives. These provide the framework for the application of the principles and standards adopted by the authorities within the framework of the law and policies establishing the programme. There are thus many advantages in grouping together and arranging all these documents in a coherent manner.
The various directives to be drawn up should therefore encompass the whole field of information from its creation to its destruction, or storage in cases where it acquires lasting value. This is a vast field which is growing daily more complex, just as the number of people involved is increasing.
The preparation of a good handbook of directives involves observing various principles and avoiding several often hidden pitfalls. The subject of Part 1 of this study is how to take these things into account; doing so should make it possible to prepare effective and useful handbooks for government agencies.
Merely possessing a good handbook is not enough, however. It must also be applied and updated by an administrative unit whose main responsibility is records management. This body (the 'central body') can only perform its duties if it is backed by the necessary legislation and has adequate resources. Part 2 of this study deals with these essential structural aspects.
Part 3 deals with another important aspect that must precede the preparation of the handbook, namely the adoption of broad policies that lay down for each of the areas studied current, semi-current and non-current records - the general guidelines that the government agency will follow in the management of its information.
Only once all these elements are in place is it really possible to think of doing what this study is all about, viz. preparing directives specific to each aspect of the records management programme. Based on government policies, these directives will enable managers in the different sectors of government service to introduce their own programmes in a structured and coherent manner.