Hi

 

A few, brief, thoughts.

 

This is as much about confidence as it is about BIP 0008:2004 (plan do check act model) – remember the compliance code is primarily about procedures and processes for electronic documents and, in my view, has been captured to extend into scanning, attaching/ensuring the necessary integrity exists.  That is the crux in my opinion, ensuring sufficient policies are in place to support a scanning solution evidenced by good scanning practices such as showing the process flows from being received to being scanned and then that the scan also has integrity.  If this is all backed up by a full audit trail then you should be able to demonstrate the ability to set low retention periods for the paper equivalent, possibly no more than a few days if you have a fast verification process.  The process of scanning is not a simple one as you need to convince your customers.  And remember BIP 0008 has heavyweight support, see the RM Code of Practice, Appendix A (Freedom of Information Act 2000).

 

Be warned, I am aware that some funding bodies have refused to accept storage of material evidence as scanned images.

 

I suggest that you first identify problem areas such as that described above and isolate them.

 

You are then advised to complete the Compliance Workbook from BIP 0008.

 

After this you need to establish your service business requirements and determine the level of confidence applied to scanned images.  You will also need to establish the view of your legal team, likely to be cautious.

 

After this think about the value of the content, business requirements, risk and then you might have a clearer idea on what you can safely dispose of after scanning and what your services require to be kept as paper using established retention policies, for paper images of scanned content (which could be much less than the electronic equivalent).

 

You should also think about sustainability of the scanned content and the ownership of the paper originals, be careful not to destroy that which you do not have a mandate to destroy.

 

Storage of the paper content (once scanned) is often easier if you develop a unique alpha numerical ID, this saves time and space in classifying the paper content, instead relying on the electronic classification.  You could even think about remote storage.

 

I think some work around this in developing more cohesive guidance could be a useful product from the Records Management Society, a guidance tool on Scanning Content with Integrity and legal admissibility.  I shall share this thought with colleagues.  Is there general interest in this piece of work being done?

 

Paul Dodgson

 

-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Darbyshire , Michelle
Sent: 04 September 2006 15:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Storing originals after scanning

 

Dear All,

 

As BMBC will shortly be implementing an e-post room I would appreciate some thoughts as to how long other organisations store the original records once they have been scanned.

All feed back will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Regards

Michelle Darbyshire

Records Manager

BMBC

Barnsley

Tel: 07786525438

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