How to improve records in government with one metric

What is the prime objective of the various records and archives acts?

I think it's much simpler than our practices would have us believe.

Simply, it's to make sure information required by public servants to do their job, or created as a by-product of them doing their jobs is available now and into the future.

What's the best leading indicator of our capacity to meet this objective?

I think it's the rate of systematic control that we have of our records - and you can measure that however you’d like. Personally, I’d start with how many of our records can we apply a system enforced non-deletion policy to.

So why don't we measure it regularly?

Why don't we report on it frequently?

Until we have systematic control, everything else is a waste of time.

It's a lagging indicator of how successful we've been establishing control over our repositories, and it sets a ceiling on how successful any efforts to raise quality can be without changing systems.

Basically it's the one metric that tells us whether we can have a clue about whether we're fulfilling the prime purpose of our legislation.

So where is it?

Why aren't we reporting on it?

Why isn't it the first metric that archival institutions ask for?

How do we set any good strategy without first understanding it?

If you're interested in what I hear - when I talk to information and records managers, these are the most common estimates that people will give me -

• Local government mostly do pretty well - 80%+

• State and Federal Government mostly report between 10 and 40% (with occasional standouts in the 90%+ category)

• Universities 2% and up.

All these agencies sign their compliance statements, and in most cases I would say that their records teams are under-funded.