I suspect that our experience is similar to that of most colleagues, but
over the years we have moved organisationally several times reflecting wider
reorganisations within BT (British telecommunications). Sometimes we have
temporarily benefited from this, at other times our reporting line has been
truly bizarre. At times I have reported to managers responsible for
administration services, office services, building & facilities services,
internal contact services, internal phone provisioning services, catering &
even chauffeurs! Some of the stranger positions were under the umbrella of
Human Resources which, naturally enough, didn't see us as part of their core
business and didn't really know where to position us.
Since last year we have reported to the Director of Corporate Governance
within the Company Secretary's Area. This has assisted us immeasurably; we
have an increasing profile, we are in a part of the business which values us
and sees our activity as complementing others in the Area, we are better
resourced (I have been allowed to recruit another professional archivist)
and supported,  and we are much closer organisationally to key individuals
and people who have daily contact with key people across the business i.e.
Board Secretariat (and their records!). Equally important is that by the
nature of its activity and the relatively small number of people in
Secretary's Area, SA is much less likely to be prey to the constant
reorganisations going on elsewhere. Change is constant to some degree, but
we have much more stability than before; before this last move I had 5
managers in two years, all of whom had to be "sold" the value of an Archives
and persuaded to provide budget, with varying degrees of success. This
obviously detracted from our proper activity.
The only downside to this last move is that we have been divorced from the
records management activity which has since moved from HR to Facilities.
This has caused a few headaches budgets wise (who pays for storage of
material being held for review?), but we still have a close working
relationship and understand the value of each other. Functionally, there has
been no practical difference, but ideally we would all have the same
reporting line.
There are those who say that in these days of flatter structures and matrix
management organisational position is irrelevant. From personal experience I
can say that this is utter rot; organisational positioning and personal
support from key senior managers is critical, the argument that Archives can
"hide" behind a records or information management function really no-longer
holds water. Managers these days are constantly hunting for activities to
crop to reduce costs, and a business Archives has to demonstrate value on
its own merits, however it chooses to do so.

David Hay
BT Group Archivist
http://www.bt.com/archives/


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Michael Les Benedict [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:	11 February 1999 17:01
> To:	[log in to unmask]
> Subject:	reporting structures for business archives
> 
> <<<<
> To send to the entire Busarch list, include the address
> [log in to unmask]
> in your set of recipients (e.g. add that address as a "cc:" recipient
> when replying).
> >>>>
> I am working on an article dealing with the importance of reporting
> structure to the success of business archives.  
> 
> The presumption has always been that the higher in the corporate structure
> the archives reports to--best being a VP or Corporate Secretary--the more
> clout and the healthier the archives will be.
> 
> Yet, it seems in analysis thus far, that the majority of business archives
> report to Directors in Marketing, PR, or Communications Depts.
> 
> I would very much like to hear from colleagues here in the U.S. and abroad
> regarding whom they report to and how important that has been in the
> ability to accession records, get support for programmatic endeavors, and
> the general perception of the importance of the archives to your
> corporation.
> 
> I thank you in advance for your assistance.  You may either send responses
> directly to me at [log in to unmask] or post replies to the list--if
> others
> are also interested in this information--and you are comfortable sharing
> it
> with the list.
> 
> Karen Benedict (ignore the Michael Les appearing in the From line)
> Consultant in Archives and Records Management
> 
> 
>               Business Archives Mailing List.
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