One of the interesting outcomes from PROV’s work in understanding how Primary Capability was achieved by agencies, was the recognition that agencies have different recordkeeping motivations. This becomes clearer when two indices are employed to identify motivation;
- Access and classify,
- Preservation.
This diagram identifies that agencies can be motivated primarily to deliver classification and access outcomes for their records or primarily to preserve the records or to have a mix of both. You will note that no agency is only interested in one of these outcomes. However initial activity for many agencies is primarily one or the other and then the secondary outcome is added.
Cluster 1 are agencies that are still to develop primary capability. Their ability to classify, access and preserve records is poor. They have not developed or identified the value of connecting recordkeeping and the business of the agency. If they can find records, they can’t be certain as to their evidentiary value.
Cluster 2 are agencies that have developed primary capability and are looking to move to line of business applications (Department Assessment Stage 2. The have RMS and or EDMS but no or very limited preservation capability. Typically records will be locatable, but most likely the users wont be confident about their evidentiary value.
Cluster 3 are agencies that are implementing recordkeeping in line of business applications and are positioning themselves for Enterprise Wide records management rollout. They have implemented improved classification and access and improved preservation processes. The motivation to enhance preservation is driven from risks clearly identified.
Cluster 4 are agencies that have minimal classification and access abilities for most records. They have applied preservation processes to their records. This is frequently print to paper or backup tapes. It is likely that most records will be hard to locate, but they of high evidentiary value.
Cluster 5 are agencies that have implemented best practice recordkeeping applying classification, accessibility and preservation to valued records across the enterprise.
In 2008 mapping a sample of government agencies to this development path showed:
You can see that the favoured path is identified as 1. Only a small number of agencies will follow path 4 (cluster 4) and these are particular agencies with critical “whole of government registry functions”. Also while most agencies have moved there are a smaller number that have yet to make the jump to manage their digital records effectively.
