Records management in the public sector : the transition from registries to records centres

Abstract

Since 1961, the government registries have always been the hub where every document written on paper was kept for various business transactions. The introduction of computers in government registries created a secure and efficient system to register the daily activities. Upon the enactment of the National Archives Act (NAA) in 2005, the government administration also had to address the salient issue of keeping records for posterity by employing records officers within the public service. The main objective of this study is to investigate the current records management practice in the government registries, compared to autonomous records centres. It also aims to investigate to what extent the efforts to restructure records management systems answer the current challenges and create the desired impact in the respective entities. In order to reach these objectives, the study engaged relevant local professionals who took part in interviews and email questionnaires. Although a range of other aspects of records management had been studied locally, the investigation of transitioning government registries to records centres is a relatively new topic. The main findings of the essay highlight how the scope of registries and records centres differ from each other in particular, in the domain of electronic records. The records centres are more advanced and comply with the practices of records management. Hence they are good practice for government registries which can be adopted wider in the future.