Why retention schedules are a not a valuation tool and are actually killing records management.

What is the most valuable information according to a retention schedule?

Obviously it's anything classed as permanent retention.

Enduring value to the state etc. etc.

What's the most valuable record for a frontline worker?

It's the to-do list that they just wrote.

It helps them know where they are, so that they know what to do next.

If they lose it, they will feel a horrible sense of anxiety because they won't know where they are anymore.

Most retention schedules will consider this ephemera.

What does this tell us about retention schedules?

Mostly, the value that the retention schedule describes isn't value as felt by people in the organisation.

Its’ value as felt by people who wrote some legislation (whoever they are).

Or value as felt by people who are interested in the history of a state or country (whoever they are).

Basically, the schedules capture the value of everyone else.

And that's where the focus of records management practice and tools goes as a result.

This shows.

In many organisations, the compliance rate for records policy is WELL below 50%

The records in these organisations tell a story.

One day, an archival institution will be able to tell that story.

It will go like this -

"And here is records management. It died because it kept focusing on the value of things as described by everyone other than the people it needed to do the work of keeping the records."

My honest belief is that records will die if we don't start focusing on how to deliver the most important information to people when they need it.

The problem is that we keep looking at legislation, archival regulation and historical stuff to understand what value means - and then we write a schedule.

We should be starting with the to do list.

And then moving to the information needed to complete the actions on the to do list.

It's the only way we're going to succeed through the efforts of others.

Because the game isn't record keeping.

And it certainly isn't managing the records.

It's definitely not RM - retention management.

It's Records Management - the management discipline whose sole purpose is to improve organisational performance through records management practices.