Agenda item

Further to Minute 74 of the meeting held on the 18^th April, 2018 the Head of IT (Service Management) will make a presentation addressing issues arising from the ICO audit report.

Further to Minute 74 of the meeting held on the 18^th April, 2018, Mrs S Hydon the Head of IT (Service Management) and Mr S Jagger (ICT Technical Specialist) made a presentation addressing issues arising from the ICO audit report in relation to Records Management.

The presentation gave details of the following:

·         The promotion of a paperless office, the issues to be addressed together with the action taken and to be taken and the importance of understanding the difference between Records and Files - The Authority currently held in excess of 23m records/documents (which was growing substantially due to more being delivered electronically) with many officers not fully understanding the difference between a record and a document

·         The Aims of the Project was to

o   Provide education and understanding

o   Ensure that the responsibility for a service’s records sat with that service

o   Ensure that the proper tools were in place to manage records and documents the right way from now on (and ensuring that records were only kept for an appropriate time and were then deleted)

o   Consider how the authority dealt with its existing data migration

·         High Level Tasks included

o   The development of the necessary tools to assist in this process

o   The establishment of Records Champions – these champions would ‘sit’ within Service areas and, amongst other things, would help officers understand the need for change, assist in the process by dealing with the transition of data, assist in establishing appropriate retention rules and help officers understand the differences between records and documents

o   The development of a new Barnsley Records Catalogue – being aligned to the retention of records

o   Preparation of network content which in turn would lead to a reduction of the amount of data currently stored

o   The establishment of training courses for Champions and all staff

o   The development of transition tools to move from the existing network into a records management system (and subsequent deletion of that network information)

o   Ensure appropriate Governance arrangements are in place particularly in preparation for future ICO audits

In the ensuing discussion particular reference was made to the following:

·         The way in which the Authority used electronic ‘back up’ of documents – it was noted that ‘back ups’ are overwritten after time, depending on the system being copied

·         There was a discussion or the work of the Records Champions and particular reference was made to the amount of time that each Champion would be required to allocate to the project

·         The Head of IT (Service Management) referred to the amount of work to be undertaken.  The next 18 months was likely to be intensive but the long term benefits would be significant.  She was confident that there would be sufficient resources to undertake the necessary work

·         The development of the necessary ‘tools’ was in hand and were to be tested initially with the HR Service in the next few days

RESOLVED

(i)            that the presentation be noted and officers be thanked for attending the meeting and answering Members questions; and

(ii)               that the action being taken to address issues raised following the Information Commissioners Audit in relation to Records Management be noted and supported.