15 September 2006 - Scotland Group Meeting
RMS Scotland Group Meeting 15 September 2006
�Sticks and Carrots: Legislation, Standards and Compliance�
The meeting took place in University of Glasgow, Western Infirmary Lecture Theatre
The meeting was opened by Amanda Wright of the RMS Scotland Group Committee. Professor Michael Moss, University of Glasgow�s Faculty of Arts Research Professor and Director of MSc Information Management and Preservation and PhD research in the Humanities Advance Technology & Information Institute (Hatii) gave an overview of the courses and an extremely interesting view of the profession and how it can be traced to anthropological roots. The various reference texts quoted by Professor Moss are available in the document below.
The morning session, Sticks: Information Security: What is information security? What is the impact of legislation, standards, community security policy? presented by Steph Dawson, Information Security Officer, Strathclyde Police. Steph gave a very in-depth view of issues surrounding the matter of information security. (see slides below)
The afternoon session, Carrots: Records Management Assessment: National Archives of Scotland assess Scottish Executive, was presented by Jenny Cutts, National Archives of Scotland. The National Archives of Scotland (NAS) are embarking on an assessment of records management at the Scottish Executive piloting their new Complying with the Records Management Code: Evaluation Workbook currently in development.
Jenny led us through the background for the development of this workbook and explained its origins. The TNA produced a document called �Complying with the Records Management Code: Evaluation workbook and methodology� and with their permission NAS used that as a starting point.
The main modifications made were to adapt it for a Scottish context. The TNA document was written to relate to the Records Management Code which supports section 46 of the UK Freedom of Information Act. So NAS rewrote the document to refer to Scottish legislation and guidance instead.
The draft NAS workbook is split into six modules, each with a series of �yes� or �no� questions. There are approximately 150 questions in total covering a range of records management functions.
Jenny described the possible benefits of organisations completing the workbook, these can be seen in the presentation below.
The presentation was followed by a lively general discussion on the draft workbook. The main area for discussion was on the topic of scoring. Some felt that a simple �yes� or �no� answer would not fully reflect the state of their records management functions.
It has been proposed that a meeting will take place between NAS and members of the RMS Scotland Group committee. All RMS members are invited to pass on any comments and suggestions they would like the committee to take to the meeting. If there are any comments you would like to submit please email them to the RMS SG ListServ or directly to a committee member.
An update on RMS Scotland Group was then given by Heather Jack, Chair of the RMS Scotland Group Committee. Heather introduced the new committee members to the group and gave an overview of the various roles. The group were updated on the new RMS SG MailTalk List Serv (http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/lists/RMS-Scotland.html) which is now in full use and they were encouraged to post to the Listserv and to help turn it into an valuable knowledge source.
Members were also reminded of the visit to the Scottish Executive on October 12th to view their EDRM system. All places on the visit have now been taken.
The RMS SG Resources section of the RMS website has now been launched. If there are any ideas for additional content to this section please contact Ken Glasgow, Web Resource Editor (Ken.Glasgow@scotland.gsi.gov.uk)
The next RMS Scotland Group meeting will take place in December. Once details have been confirmed the event will be advertised through all the usual routes.
The meeting was closed by Amanda Wright who gave the vote of thanks to our speakers and participants and to the University of Glasgow for use of their conference facilities.
Sponsorship:
Our thanks go to Objective for sponsoring our September event.
Objective Corporation enables public and private sectors organisations to gain control of critical information through innovative enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. Bringing together the right information, with the right people, at the right time, Objective solutions solve real-world business issues by improving operational efficiency within increasingly regulated environments. Enabling fast access to accurate information, in a secure and auditable environment, Objective minimises cost and maximises corporate memory. Objective works closely with both end user organisations and business partners to ensure maximum returns are realised in timeframes that are realistic and that build a flexible basis for future organisational change.
Objective Records Management provides organisations with the ability to manage both physical and electronic records in a single solution. Objective underpins compliance with records management legislation and can be configured to accommodate any specified fileplan, allowing users to categorise and search for records in a quick and easy manner.
For further information, please visit www.objective.com.
Shona Dunning
September 2006
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