Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
SARAH TYACKE
CB, MRS W JONES
AND SUSAN
HEALY
14 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q40 Mr Cunningham: You do assessments?
Mrs Tyacke: Yes. As it says in
the Act it will be the Information Commissioner who is responsible
for promoting both codes, the Access Code 45 and the Records Management
Code. At 47(5), he is enjoined to consult the Keeper of Public
Records and the Deputy Keeper of the Northern Ireland Record Office
in respect of records management issues. Under a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Information Commissioner we will be working
with the Information Commissioner where it is relevant to our
public records' duties.
Q41 Mr Cunningham: In its annual report
TNA emphasises its role in providing advice to Government, national
and local, on records management. How has this manifested itself
in the run up to the Freedom of Information Act implementation?
Mrs Tyacke: This has meant that
we have been proactive and under the roll out, which DCA is leading,
we have contributed quite considerably to records management and
other issues. On this particular issue I would like to ask Susan
to make further additional comments.
Ms Healy: We have concentrated
on providing advice and support in getting records management
right for FOI. We have done this, firstly, by issuing the model
action plans which I mentioned earlier and, secondly, by contributing
to the various road shows around the country which were organised
by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, former Lord Chancellor's
Department, where we had a slot on records management and we did
workshops on aspects of records management. We have contributed
to general events like that. We have contributed, also, to conferences
for FOI and we have run particular seminars and workshops for
records managers. The third element is the guidance which we publish
and we have published a lot of guidance in both print form and
on our website which is accessible to anybody which sets out good
practice in various aspects of records management and includes
things like model disposal schedules, setting out recommended
periods for which particular types of records should be kept.
What we have been doing is providing the tools and the means for
organisations to put good records management in place.
Mr Cunningham: What is your focus on
unitary and county councils? Why those in particular?
Q42 Chairman: As opposed to districts.
Ms Healy: Are you referring to
the model action plan aimed at local government? It was not aimed
specifically at principal councils, it was aimed at local authorities
generally but I think would be of more use to principal and district
councils than, say, to parish councils.
Q43 Mr Cunningham: Which groups and organisations
have best practice in place?
Mrs Tyacke: Difficult.
Ms Healy: There are some very
good councils which have really good practice in place, others
are improving. It is difficult to single out examples.
Q44 Chairman: Are some a long way behind?
I am putting words in your mouth.
Ms Healy: Some are improving.
Mrs Tyacke: Some have appointed
an information and records manager.
Q45 Mr Cunningham: How long will it be
until the good records' management is being practised across the
public sector in your assessment?
Mrs Tyacke: It is a bit like the
Forth Bridge in the sense that you have to keep going on things
like records management and archival services. It is never ending
and you will find that over time things will improve but, equally,
from time to time, they can go the other way. I would think that
it is like some of the other things we have been trying to do,
it is always a long haul when it comes to records management.
Q46 Chairman: Going back to Mr Cunningham's
earlier point, you did say in your annual report " . . .
initially we are focusing on the needs of unitary and county councils
although we will respond positively to inquiries from other bodies."
Mrs Tyacke: Yes.
Q47 Chairman: We took that to mean that
was where you were directing your effort?
Mrs Tyacke: I think that is a
practical, pragmatic view of what we thought we could manage to
do.
Q48 Chairman: The chances are that some
small districts, who do not really have the critical mass to have
a dedicated officer in this area, might be the ones with the biggest
problems?
Mrs Tyacke: Thank you for that
and certainly we will look at that again.
Q49 Dr Whitehead: Could I turn to electronic
record management. One of your targets for 2003-04 was to encourage
other Government departments to achieve electronics records management
by 2004. How have you encouraged them?
Mrs Tyacke: Again, by putting
in place guidance and also by forming an electronic records management
cross government committee to drive this forward and also providing
them again with the tools. It is all very well to say "You
are all using PCs, it is necessary now for you to put in place
proper records management" but obviously people require assistance
to do that, it is our job to put that in place. Since 1995 we
have had an electronic records management group across Government.
One of the first steps we took was to encourage providers of electronic
records management systems to come forward and to comply with
what we and the other departments regarded as a proper records
management requirement. I do not mean, therefore, merely a document
handling activity like Outlook or whatever, I mean a records management
requirement. My view is that we were successful in that, we have
continued to test software products with a view to making sure
that there are those products available. I am satisfied those
products are available which is why we have been able to make
some inroads into electronic records management over the past
three or four years.
Q50 Dr Whitehead: Which Government departments
would you say have been most encouraged by your efforts?
Mrs Tyacke: I would like to say
all of them.
Q51 Dr Whitehead: If you had to say?
Mrs Tyacke: DCA, of course; the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Treasury, of course, have
long traditions and had already been pioneers in this area building
themselves bespoke systems. Those who have come on strongly are
departments like the Department for Trade and Industry. It becomes
a little invidious but I have mentioned some departments who I
believe have done very well indeed.
Q52 Dr Whitehead: What about those departments
who have done less well?
Mrs Tyacke: All the departments
are now sensitised to this issue and we believe that most of them
will have got some way towards this during the course of next
year.
Q53 Dr Whitehead: How do you monitor
that progress?
Mrs Tyacke: We monitor it half-yearly
and we put reports into the Secretary of State and also to the
departments concerned and, of course, the cross Government group
that I spoke of looks at this and gives us advice as to what steps
they feel would be most useful. At the moment their view is that
we should assist in making clear to departments where people have
been successful so that others can learn and also in looking at
benefits realisation of one sort or another, so that is what we
are trying to concentrate on. Our view is, obviously, the Records
Management Advisory Service for the wider public sector should
take advantage of some of this work when it is appropriate. Thus,
hopefully, over a course of time, best practice in this field
will get to other parts of the public sector and also, where they
wish to the private sector. There are now many more practitioners
in this field and records management is now a recognised activity
by most organisations and although I am never over-optimistic
or even optimistic in this area, I do think that some inroads
have been made.
Q54 Dr Whitehead: When your monitoring
demonstrates particular departments are falling behind, what sort
of action might you take to assist them to catch up?
Mrs Tyacke: Obviously we monitor
as carefully as we can on the route map. We know whether they
have a policy, we know whether they have done this or done that
which seems sensible to us and to the departments on the group
that I spoke of. If it appears that there is an issue, for whatever
reason, then my colleagues will obviously go to visit the department.
If there seems to be a real issue which is unresolvable at that
level then obviously I take a personal interest and I will go
to visit myself.
Q55 Dr Whitehead: Do you think electronic
records management is a particular challenge across the whole
sector?
Mrs Tyacke: Yes. I think it is
a particular challenge for all organisations, both public and
private. The issue colleagues have when they come to visit us
is that not only is there the issue of managing the record as
it is produced, but it is the issue of preserving those records
that you need for business purposes and then ultimately for the
historical record of this country or of the organisation concerned.
This is a very serious issue. We have begun to deal with it, in
the sense that we have established a digital archive facility
at The National Archives which is able to take digital records
from Government which are worthy of preservation under the Public
Records Act. To say that it is not challenging, I would need to
be very complacent indeed. It is challenging and it is something
which affects all countries, not just one sector in one country.
Q56 Dr Whitehead: It is challenging for
you in particular, is it not, in as much as—again I think
that this was touched upon when we visited you—the suggestion
is that a number of Government departments may decide that particularly
with the change in the 30 year rule the correct repository for
their electronic records at a very early stage is you, perhaps
on the grounds that you can then sort out the problems of incompatible
formats and jumbles of information in the way that perhaps they
would not wish to.
Mrs Tyacke: There is always a
tension between wishing to use The National Archives in the way
that you suggest and taking responsibility for the records which
you need for your business purposes within a department or an
organisation. I am sure that we will have negotiations along the
lines that you are suggesting. In some cases, it will be sensible
for the record to come through so that it is released early in
accordance with FOI and the public know exactly where it is. In
other areas it would be a question of a department themselves
taking responsibility for the records that they need for their
own business activities and coming to an arrangement with us as
to when it will be suitable for the record to move, if I can put
it that way, or be disposed of to another place of deposit or
whatever.
Q57 Dr Whitehead: Does that mean though
you are going to get very inconsistent policies on record releases
across Government departments?
Mrs Tyacke: Obviously it will
not be time dependent because the 30 year rule is abolished except
where exemptions are continuing up until that point. There are
issues round that, but I think I mentioned when I was answering
Ann Cryer, we need to make sure the public know, and indeed other
stakeholders including Government itself, what is being released
as it is released and when it moves into the catalogue of our
holdings. We are alert to this issue because it would be unfortunate
if confusion was the order of the day. I do not think it will
be but it does mean that we have to do something at the departments'
end as well because obviously they need to say what has been released.
Q58 Dr Whitehead: Outside central Government,
firstly to what extent do you think electronic records management
is being embraced; secondly, an issue that you may have concerned
yourself about is that certainly the experience outside central
Government of their earlier version of FOI, the disclosure of
information legislation as far as local Government is concerned,
seems on occasions to have caused a number of local Government
officers to decide the best way to keep records which would not
be subject to the gaze of history will be to put them all on emails
and delete them. Therefore your records that will come your way
will simply be the sanitised version of history as approved by
those people with access to a delete button.
Mrs Tyacke: I could say the same
could happen with paper. It is just that we are not so used to
electronic, therefore we suppose its fragility is more than paper.
In some respects it is but in other respects it is not, after
all a hard disk will retain material even if you have hit the
delete button. Digital archaeologists are already abounding I
understand so I hope that will not come to pass. In terms of emails,
emails are public records. There is email guidance on our website
for central departments and everyone else who wants to look at
it and it explains how you should deal with emails, if they are
corporate record and records which are important to the business
it does describe what you should do. Obviously, it is perfectly
legitimate to dispose of records/emails when they are no longer
needed for the business but it is critical that you should have
a policy in place which makes it quite clear to anybody who is
making application to you that you have a policy in place as to
the deletion/disposal of email as one would with paper records
and I think that seems to me to be a sensible way forward.
Q59 Chairman: In 30 years' time, do you
think we would have been able to find and access as comprehensive
a range of emails as was produced to the Hutton Inquiry?
Mrs Tyacke: The answer to that
is probably yes. It is difficult to say in terms of any particular
category but the opportunity to record more is obviously with
us now because of emails because they are closer to text, if not
text itself than, say, the telephone call. The telephone call
did mean that, of course, there had been some uncertainties in
the record in the past. It seems to me that the advent of email,
obviously we are talking about corporate record, we are talking
about business record, public record, we are not talking about
asking the boys down the pub for a drink although conceivably
that might get caught up in the record. I do not see that there
is any reason to suppose we will get less of a record.
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