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From the owner to the summer intern, all employees are responsible for making sure that business information is accurate, clearly legible, and factual. In one way or another, all members of staff come into contact with administrative records, and this is where an understanding is needed for record management to be carried out at a high standard.
So-called ‘lower level’ employees are too often forgotten about when it comes to their inclusion in education and training activities around record management, suggesting it’s a problem above their pay grade. However, these employees the front line for the business and your first line of defence against compliance breaches. It’s for this reason that everyone needs to be aware about how to manage records effectively, resulting in an efficiently run business all round.
By creating an environment where employees feel a shared accountability, you are creating a compliance culture. If you expect your employees to take record management seriously, it’s important that the push starts from the top and works down through all ranks of the workforce.
By fostering a culture where employees are kept up to date and empowered to manage records safely, your workplace’s attitude towards compliance will change for the good. Rather than being seen as a chore, it is just accepted as the way information should be kept.
By fostering good records management, the business benefits as a whole. The goal of records management is not to create unnecessary filing and bureaucracy, but to streamline and standardise processes and keep business operations in order.

Individual Positions of Responsibilities
Although everyone in the organisation is responsible for record keeping, to ensure that standards are met, there are individual positions that take the lead:
Managers and supervisors need to start the push for good record management. By making sure the heads of the business are prioritising it, then the rest of your employees will follow.
Record proprietors determine which records will be created, gathered, and maintained. From there, they produce documents needed for audit checks and other compliance procedures. This position could be one in its own right, or could fall to management. For larger organisations with multiple record filing systems, there may be more than one person taking responsibility.
Record custodians maintain, secure, and care for records in accordance with company guidelines. This individual is the manager of a unit assigned to the role by the record proprietor. In some cases the record proprietor and record custodian may be the same person, and there could actually be more than one custodian.
Local records management coordinators create, publish, and maintain local record-retention schedules. A retention schedule is a policy that defines how long records must be kept and provides disposal guidelines for how data items should be discarded.
The Benefits of Effective Records Management:

• Helps you to do your job better by increasing the ease and efficiency of work, you can find the information you need quickly, allowing you to get on with your work
• Increases your accountability by providing evidence of what has happened in the past, offering up clear information that can be used if problems occur
• Increases company efficiency by making sure that you’re only keeping records you need
• Gives you records you can rely on by giving you records of a high value if they’re ever needed as evidence due to their standards in validity, accuracy, and relevance
• Shows you’re following legislation by complying to the expected standards

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These three terms can often be thrown around willy-nilly, but there is a difference between them. All three are relevant in the process of record management, so making sure you know what everything means really is vital.
The importance of records management cannot be stressed enough, with the benefits being that the general efficiency of the business is increased through an organised and easy system to work with. Additionally, the accountability of the company is better off, reducing the chances of problems occurring in the future, as well as allowing you to avoid penalty fines from the HM Revenue and Customs.
So as you can see, good record management results in a well-run business, as well as no added financial strain through fines and legislation issues. This is why understanding the keywords involved in the process is something you shouldn’t ignore.
What is “Data”?
Data is just facts and figures. This can be a set of value of a qualitative or quantitative variable, in other words – data that can either be measured in numbers or not. For example, the population of a town over the last 250 years would be quantitative data, whilst the colour of the sky is qualitative data.
While the concept of data can commonly be linked with scientific research, it’s actually collected by a huge range of organisations and institutions. Businesses collect data on sales, revenue, profits, and stock prices, whilst the government use data on crime figures, and employment/literacy rates.
Data is measured, collected, reported, and analysed, from there it can be used for graphs, images or other analysis tools.

What is “Information”?
Information is something that provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. It is linked closely to data and knowledge, which is why the terms can often be confused.
Information can be encoded into various forms for transmission and interpretation, it can also be encrypted for safe storage and communication.
It also reduces uncertainty. This sounds very cryptic, but the uncertainty of an event is measured by its probability of occurrence and is inversely proportional to that. The more uncertain that an event is, the more information is required to resolve the uncertainty of that event.
For example, if you record the population of a town over 10 years, those figures are data, but if you find from these figures that the population has been increasing/decreasing, then this revelation is information.
What is a “Record”?
A record is anything that supports the business such as business decisions, policy documents and approval documents. This includes emails, paper documents or electronic files that provide evidence of business activity.
Data and information can then be held as a record both physically in a book, or electronically in a computer file. Most of the information you use in day-to-day working life will be classed as a record as a result.
 

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Keeping good records is vital for a business of any size. However, figures suggest that UK businesses are far from setting a good example when it comes to record-keeping. HM Revenue and Customs found that until January 2012, 39% of businesses inspected had some issue with their record-keeping.

All information that is created, sent and received in business is potentially a record. Management of these records is the process of looking after information through careful supervision and administration, whether they’re digital or paper records, they need to be managed to a high standard.

What is Record Management?

Records management activities include the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposal of records. These records could be in the form of contracts, memos, paper files, electronic files, reports, emails, videos, instant message logs or databases. Paper records may be stored in physical boxes on-premises or at a storage facility whilst digital records may be stored on storage media in-house or in the cloud. Whatever the format, and however they are stored, they need to be managed carefully.

The goal of records management is to help organisations keep the necessary documentation accessible for both business operations and compliance checks. This kind of conscientiousness saves a lot of time and a lot of stress in the event of something like an audit. In smaller businesses, spreadsheets may be used to track where records are stored and for how long, but larger organisations may need to install records management software suites. These can be linked to tax collection and a records retention schedule to help streamline processes.

Good records management will:

• Help you to do your job better by increasing the ease and efficiency of work; you can find the information you need quickly which allows you to get on with your work
• Increase your accountability, allowing you to provide evidence of previous events/transactions, offering up clear information that can be used if problems occur
• Increase company efficiency by making sure that you’re only keeping records you need
• Give you reliable records of high value if they’re ever needed as evidence due to their standards in validity, accuracy, and relevance
• Prove you’re are following legislation by complying to the expected standards

The consequences of poor records management are:

• Poor service delivery through a lack of efficiency
• Inaccurate and less confident decision making from employees because they’re having to work with below-standard/no records
• Little or non-compliance with legislation that can lead to penalties from HMRC
• Potential financial losses if an organisation is unable to defend its interests
• Wasted time and manpower from trying to find the records you need

Vital records, as the name suggests, refer to important events, specifically they are records of life events that are kept under governmental authority. This includes birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates.

When it comes to records management the term ‘vital record’ means the records that are essential to the organisation in order to continue with its business both during and after a disaster, in other words, it would prevent the company from carrying on with day-to-day work if it wasn’t available.

Less than 5% of records are identified as vital and although losing most records will cause inconvenience, you can often work around it or recreate records. Vital records are the ones required in order to operate.

There are four areas that could count as a ‘disaster’: flood, fire, security, and environmental pollution. Vital records allow businesses to continue functioning even if the disaster destroys all other records.

Different Types of Vital Records

There are five categories of vital records:

1. Emergency: This is needed immediately after a disaster to help recovery such as staff contact details
2. Legal: They prove ownership or interests such as contracts and leases
3. Financial: Demonstrates the income and spending of a business, this could be a monthly report or bank details
4. Operational: They are required for critical services such as security procedures and IT configuration information
5. Organisation/Stakeholder right: This protects the interests of all parties, for example, annual accounts and shareholder registers could be included

Identifying a Vital Record

It is necessary to identify vital records to ensure that the records remain secure, accessible and easily locatable during a disaster. The vital records form a vital part of disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

Companies need to protect the right records, rather than spending lots of resources on securely storing non-essential records whilst leaving vital records open to vulnerability.

To identify your vital records you should consider the following:

• Identify the key functions, business processes and stakeholders of your department
• Identify the potential impact of not providing these functions
• Identify the records needed to support these functions and processes
• Identify which of these records are vital – of the functions of these records can be re-established if they’re lost, then they’re not vital

How to Protect Vital Records: Electronic

• Electronic vital records must be stored on central servers so that they are protected by back-up and disaster recovery
• Don’t store vital records on portable hardware, such as USBs, DVDs/CDs
• Don’t store vital records on a laptop’s hard drive or on your personal hard drive
• Use a readable format such as PDF/PDFA or plain text or rich text format for records that need to be stored for a long period of time

How to Protect Vital Records: Hard Copies

Vital Records which are only available in paper format should be duplicated, in the same or original format depending on requirements, with the originals and copies stored in separate locations, if possible. There are two ways of doing this:

• Scan and save them electronically
• Use off-site storage

A record is anything that supports the business such as business decisions, policy documents and approval documents. This includes emails, paper documents or electronic files that provide evidence of a business’s activity.

Data and information can then be held as a record physically such as a book or electronically in a computer file, or even as a video. Most of the information you use in day-to-day working life will be classed as a record as a result.

Whilst records can deal with business activities such as policies and procedures, invoices, and meeting reports, the following are not generally classed as records:

• Personal communication
• Externally published information
• Blank forms or templates
• Personal emails
• Personal diary
• Draft of a policy

Different Types of Records:

Unrestricted records tend to cover information that is easily found on web pages. They are made available to the public, such as details of available services, contact information, organisational decisions, or environmental information.

Contextually sensitive records are normally available to the public, but sometimes circumstances prevent this. If the record is in draft form, it cannot be released until it is in its final format. If the information includes a third party, then this information cannot be made public without that person’s permission. In these examples, records may only be contextually sensitive for a short time, although this may vary.

Personal and Confidential Records are held about citizens, clients, customers, employees or any other individuals. This could include basic details such as names and addresses or go much more personal such as sexual orientations and political views.

Extremely Sensitive Records may be any type of information, meaning it doesn’t always have to be personal data. If these types of records were lost or made public, it would have a very negative effect on the reputation of the organisation as it could lead to consequences such as loss of life, damage to our ability to carry out our work, massive financial losses or the public’s safety being put at risk.

Why Record Management is Important

Management of records is the process of looking after information through careful supervision and administration, whether they’re digital or paper records, they need to be managed to a high standard.

The goal of records management is to help an organisation keep the necessary documentation accessible for both business operations and compliance checks, improving organisation which saves a lot of time, and a lot of stress.

The benefits of good records management are that it…

• Increases the ease and efficiency of work
• Increases your accountability by offering up clear information that can be used if problems occur
• Means that your records are of high value if they’re ever needed as evidence due to their standards in validity,accuracy, and relevance
• Shows you’re following legislation by complying to the expected standards

Equipping your business with a records management policy means having a structure ready when you need it. By having a strong policy in place, it means that you are prepared to keep records to a high standard, and benefit as a result.

A policy should clearly set out your approach to records management and address your overall commitment, the role of records management, links to relevant policies and documents, staff roles and responsibilities, and monitoring of compliance.

Steps you can Take Towards a Good Policy…

Records management organisation: Your business has allocated records management responsibilities.

Records management risk: Your business has identified records management risks as part of a wider information risk management process.

Records management training: Your business incorporates records management with a formal training programme. This includes mandatory induction training with regular refresher material, and specialist training for those with specific records management functions.

Monitoring and reporting: Your business carries out regular checks on record security and monitors the compliance with records management procedures.

Record creation: Your business has set minimum standards for the creation of paper or electronic records.

Information you hold: Your business has identified where you use manual and electronic records keeping systems and actively maintains a centralised record of those systems.

Information standards: Your business has processes in place to ensure that the personal data you collect is accurate, adequate, relevant and not excessive. Additionally, regular reviews are carried out to remove any records that are out of date or no longer relevant.

Tracking of paper records: Your business has tracking mechanisms to record the movement of manual records.

Offsite transfer of electronic record: Your business has appropriate measures in place to transfer electronic records off-site and protect personal data from loss or theft.

Secure storage of records: Your business stores paper and electronic records securely with appropriate environmental controls and high levels of security around special categories of personal data.

Access to records: Your business restricts access to records storage areas in order to prevent unauthorised access, damage, theft or loss. This can be done by implementing role-based access and checking it regularly.

Business continuity: Your business has business continuity plans in place in the event of a disaster. This includes identifying records that are critical to the continued functioning or reconstitution of your business, also known as vital records.

Disposal of data: Your business has a retention and disposal schedule which details how long you will keep manual and electronic records. Your business has confidential waste disposal processes to ensure that records are destroyed to an appropriate standard.

The BBC

The BBC’s records management policy incorporates the freedom of information requirements as well as all information held in the former Core Records Policy and the Records Management Standards. The policy defines how the BBC records information and how it should be managed to standards which ensure that vital and important records are identified.

Additionally, their policy makes sure that the corporation holds records that meet the expected standards. This means that they are relevant, sufficient, timely, reliable and consistent with operational need, and that legal and regulatory obligations are met. It also defines the roles and responsibilities for the creation, safekeeping, access, change and disposition of the information.

They comply by having the policy in the first place, and it is subject to a regular review process too, to keep it efficient.

Records Management Compliance Image
Keeping good records is vital for a business of any size. However, figures suggest that UK businesses are far from setting a good example when it comes to record-keeping. HM Revenue and Customs found that 39% of businesses had some issue with their record-keeping, highlighting how records management isn’t up to the standards it should be.

All information that is created, sent and received in a business is potentially a record. How you manage these records, whether they’re digital or paper, can be detrimental for a business.

The goal of records management is to help an organisation keep the necessary documentation accessible for both business operations and compliance checks, all things that save a lot of time and stress.

Making sure your business is compliant around record management is a must. By complying, the efficiency and accountability of the business increases, and it keeps you on the right side of legislation to avoid penalty fees.

Compliance Checklist –

Records management organisation: Your business has allocated records management responsibilities.

Records management policy: Your business has approved and published an appropriate records management policy. This should be subject to a regular review process.

Records management risk: Your business has identified records management risks as part of a wider information risk management process.

Training: Your business incorporates records management with a formal training programme. This includes mandatory induction training with regular refresher material, and specialist training for those with specific records management functions.

Monitoring and reporting: Your business carries out regular checks on record security and monitors the compliance with records management procedures.

Record creation: Your business has set minimum standards for the creation of paper or electronic records.

Information you hold: Your business has identified where you use manual and electronic record keeping systems and actively maintains a centralised record of those systems.

Information standards: Your business has processes in place to ensure that the personal data you collect is accurate, adequate, relevant and not excessive. Additionally, regular reviews are carried out to remove any records that are out of date or no longer relevant.

Tracking of paper records: Your business has tracking mechanisms to record the movement of manual records.

Offsite transfer of electronic record: Your business has appropriate measures in place to transfer electronic records off-site and protect personal data from loss or theft.

Secure storage of records: Your business stores paper and electronic records securely with appropriate environmental controls and high levels of security around special categories of personal data.

Access to records: Your business restricts access to records storage areas in order to prevent unauthorised access, damage, theft or loss. This can be done by implementing role-based access and checking it regularly.

Business continuity: Your business has continuity plans in place in the event of a disaster. This includes identifying records that are critical to the continued functioning or reconstitution of your business, also known as vital records.

Disposal of data: Your business has a retention and disposal schedule which details how long you will keep manual and electronic records. Your business has confidential waste disposal processes to ensure that records are destroyed to an appropriate standard.

Good Records Management…

• Increases the ease and efficiency of the business, you can find the information you need quickly, allowing you to get on with your work
• Increases your accountability by providing evidence of what has happened in the past, offering up clear information
• that can be used whenever they’re needed
• Gives you reliable records of a high value if they’re ever needed as evidence
• Shows you’re following legislation by complying to the expected standards

Poor Records Management Means…

• Poor service delivery through inefficiency
• Inaccurate decision making from employees because they’re having to work with records of a low standard
• Little or non-compliance with legislation that can lead to penalty fines from HMRC
• Potential financial losses if an organisation is unable to defend itself
• Wasted time and manpower from trying to find the records you need

Having good quality of information means that you keep records to a high standard so that they are accurate, secure, and reliable. Good record management can only be achieved by making sure your records are up to scratch in the first place if you’re managing badly kept documents, it takes away the whole point of looking after them in the first place.

Every organisation needs its information to be reliable in order to plan, allocate and prioritise resources and deliver their services effectively. As an employee, you have a responsibility to ensure that the quality of records you create will support this.

The importance of good documentation shouldn’t be underestimated.

Information Quality Criteria

Accurate: Records must be accurate, meaning that all the details are correct and exact. To ensure that the information in a record is accurate, it should be captured as soon as possible after the event has taken place.

Valid: Information in records must be valid. This means that it has a sound basis working alongside logic and fact. It also means that where national rules apply they need to be followed. For example, the government requirements require that financial records need to contain certain information in order to be classed as valid for businesses in the public sector both. Pushing for validity also means that the information you are producing is consistent over time too.

Reliable: Information in records should always be collected in the same way to ensure reliability. This means that anyone using the records can be confident that variations are due to real changes, rather than differences caused by a changing collection method.

Timely: Information in records must be used in a timely manner, this doesn’t mean rushing, but you can’t be slow when it comes to record management. This is because they can quickly become out-of-date, something that means they lose their value.

Relevant: Information in records should be relevant to its purpose. If the requirements for the records change, then you need to review the information to make sure that it meets the new requirements, maintaining its relevance as a result.

Complete: This sounds simple, but an unfinished document is pretty useless. There tend to be requirements for records that need to be met so that they achieve everything they’re supposed to. By including everything needed, you are meeting these requirements.

Information Security at Work

Having a file plan is the perfect way to keep control of your records to increase efficiency and organisation of the business information. A file plan is a structure for the organisation to control their documents, whether that’s paper-based or electronic records. File plans should be based on the activities and functions of the company rather than organisational structures as these are more likely to change. A good file plan in place means that:

• It’s easier and quicker to find records
• Information sharing is improved
• Duplication is reduced
• Retention and disposal are more manageable
• Records are accessible when someone leaves

An Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) is a computer-based system that holds file plans and guidance on where and how to file digital records. Many other tools may be provided, such as search and retrieve systems, version control systems, e-discovery tools, tools to assist with records requests and tools to manage the record 4-stage lifecycle.

Records need to be stored safely, securely and in good conditions. Avoiding shared storage areas is a great way of doing this, but if filing cabinets are used, then make sure they are kept locked. Basic things like making sure records are dry, kept out of extreme temperature conditions, and out of reach of unwanted visitors make all the difference too.

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If organisations manage their records well, it makes it so much easier to make sound, evidence-based decisions, and to maximise the value of information your organisation holds. If, on the other hand, records are poorly managed, you could soon find yourself coming face-to-face with serious business, legal, and financial issues. Remember, information is one of an organisation’s most important assets – it needs to be recorded and stored with care.
The life cycle of records is an important process when it comes to records management. It is basically a way of looking at how records are created and used, highlighting how records become less important as time passes. This is backed by the fact that the first 90 days of the “life” of a record are when 90% of the use takes place; after that 90 days period, records tend to be forgotten about and stored away. Since there’s a short period of high-use, followed by a longer period of low use, the use and value of a record will come to an end and it may be destroyed.
This process is known as the lifecycle of a record, made up of four stages: create, maintain, store, and dispose of. Weirdly, the lifecycle of a record actually holds similarities with that of a biological organism:

• It is born = Creation
• It lives = Maintain and Store
• It dies = Dispose

 
1. Create
When you first create a record you need to make sure that you’re creating it in the best format possible. Checking on factors such as accuracy, validity, reliability, and relevance is important at this stage.
2. Store
Accessibility is vital for a record, if you fail to store it correctly there is little point having it at all! Records should be stored in a well-organised filing system to ensure that people can always find them in order to use them when needed, without having to go on a wild goose chase in the process!
3. Maintain
Maintaining records correctly means that no matter how old they are, they can always be accessed when required. The information contained in the records should be easy to read by explaining any jargon or codes, achieving a consistent level of understanding from the readers as a result.
4. Dispose
Records must be disposed of appropriately to avoid problems in the future, whether this means they’re transferred to archive storage, to another organisation, or completely destroyed. Details of destroyed records must be kept by the organisation to avoid anything getting into the wrong hands.
Why is the Lifecycle of a Record Important to Manage?
The lifecycle is crucial as it is the starting point when creating a records management program. If you didn’t have the lifecycle, records management programs wouldn’t ever be cost effective and the efficiency of how they are run would decrease.
Tools, systems, and procedures are developed to manage each phase of the life cycle. For example, file plans and tracking systems are specifically made to help manage records. A retention schedule is a tool that manages the movement of records from one phase to the next.
Having good record management means that the efficiency, performance, and accountability of the business is increased because of how they manage their records.

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