Hello all - Happy New Year! I can't believe it's taken me this long to
log back on....
To the point in hand! We have been constructing our retention
schedules/guidance for almost three years now and and we have a number one
recurring question (except when can we chuck this out): What exactly is a
vital record?
This is a good question. It's all very well in my opinion having a policy
document that says "thou shalt be aware that some records are vital". The
other thing that is oft said is "the records deemed to be vital to assist
the Council to continue to operate in the event of a disaster".
This is a general statement that appears everywhere from Risk Management,
Insurance to the Corporate Strategy BUT how do you define what they are
and is it possible to define what they are? We talk about 'asset
management' all the time but that does not include information.
Essentially I am considering writing a "Preservation Policy" (different
from Archive considerations) to draw attention to the types of document
that the user needs to retain - instead of chucking it out!
I was wondering if anyone had attempted a similar sort of work and would
be prepared to discuss or share documents?
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