In government, finance management has compliance requirements that are strictly regulated, so does HR, risk, and now even data security - and records management has compliance requirements that are..... not regulated in the slightest. And, when something goes wrong (see recent grant management news articles ) all voices claim "they didn't follow the records management rules" (often, the rules about the very creation of the records). Some Australian jurisdictions may indeed be able to do more in the oversight/regulation space, but simply choose not to. Is this perhaps because Australia's archival institutions see themselves as cultural entities instead of having responsibilities to ensure the integrity of the evidence of government (records)? In organisations, when faced with the inevitable 'no one's going to do anything to us if we break records management laws, even if we get caught - focusing on compliance is indeed a wasted effort.
I have lots of thoughts on this that are probably better reserved for a long conversation. Archives obviously see themselves as a cultural institution. Where that's got them is to the point where they aren't even able to get budget to preserve their own archive over a meaningful timeline. WA hasn't been able to accept a transfer this century, SA got access to a records management system two years ago (after regulating agencies with records systems forever), NAA had to get to the point where things were falling apart - and still hasn't managed to get a long term budget out of it.
If archives acted more like the office of national assessments (or whatever it's called now) and turned up with a dossier of past cases to advise ministers and heads of department every time they had a big decision with some kind of historical corollary to make, we'd see ministers in the news talking about how they'd "taken advice from national archives" and there would be fighting about who got to have archives in their portfolio so they could take credit for it. The only question they'd ask about funding would be "how much faster can you make your advice if I give you more money?" They'd have all the best toys, great facilities and no one would be mocking cardigans because they'd all be made from thread of gold.
In government, finance management has compliance requirements that are strictly regulated, so does HR, risk, and now even data security - and records management has compliance requirements that are..... not regulated in the slightest. And, when something goes wrong (see recent grant management news articles ) all voices claim "they didn't follow the records management rules" (often, the rules about the very creation of the records). Some Australian jurisdictions may indeed be able to do more in the oversight/regulation space, but simply choose not to. Is this perhaps because Australia's archival institutions see themselves as cultural entities instead of having responsibilities to ensure the integrity of the evidence of government (records)? In organisations, when faced with the inevitable 'no one's going to do anything to us if we break records management laws, even if we get caught - focusing on compliance is indeed a wasted effort.
I have lots of thoughts on this that are probably better reserved for a long conversation. Archives obviously see themselves as a cultural institution. Where that's got them is to the point where they aren't even able to get budget to preserve their own archive over a meaningful timeline. WA hasn't been able to accept a transfer this century, SA got access to a records management system two years ago (after regulating agencies with records systems forever), NAA had to get to the point where things were falling apart - and still hasn't managed to get a long term budget out of it.
If archives acted more like the office of national assessments (or whatever it's called now) and turned up with a dossier of past cases to advise ministers and heads of department every time they had a big decision with some kind of historical corollary to make, we'd see ministers in the news talking about how they'd "taken advice from national archives" and there would be fighting about who got to have archives in their portfolio so they could take credit for it. The only question they'd ask about funding would be "how much faster can you make your advice if I give you more money?" They'd have all the best toys, great facilities and no one would be mocking cardigans because they'd all be made from thread of gold.
But a cultural institution is nice.