Despite frequent messages of the imminent arrival of the paperless
office, we are actually generating more paper-based documents and records than ever before. Even when documents are created electronically, a hard copy is often taken and stored in a filing cabinet, increasing the amount of physical space required to store documents and records. Many documents will never become electronic, such as correspondence from customers received as letters. The hybrid systems needed to manage a combination of electronic and paper-based documents and records can be extremely difficult to control effectively.Butler Group believes that a major part of the reason behind the desire to retain paper-based versions of electronic documents and records is that it is much easier for an employee reviewing a citizen/client history to view documents or records in the same format, rather than having to switch between looking at the screen and looking at a document on the desk.
This hybrid approach creates problems, particularly where the organisation needs to retain information for statutory purposes. Firstly, it must decide which is the 'official' version of a document or record, i.e. the one that must be produced if requested by another agency, or in response to a Subject Access Request. Secondly whichever format is declared as the 'official' version must be accessible and therefore managed. Lastly there are two formats of the record to be managed and kept in line, throughout the various events that can take place in a record's lifecycle such as the retention period, reviews, the movement of the record between storage media or locations, and the final disposition. Ensuring that both versions of the record are destroyed will be an issue. If some form of the record is to be transferred to a permanent archive then the redundant version must be destroyed.
If a document is kept electronically and in paper format, its management is even more difficult than that of a record, because the document is more likely to be an evolving piece of information. If each version of the document is printed, then this adds to the paper mountain. The organisation also needs to decide if a copy of a changed document should be retained or just its final version. Documents go through many iterations before they are finalised or become records. Because a full audit trail is increasingly required for compliance, all versions of a document have to be retained alongside the final record, further adding to the 'paper mountain' if the organisation has elected to use its paper-based versions as the 'official' record.
If information held in an electronic system is adequately protected, then Butler Group does not see any need to retain a paper-based copy of a record.
Unfortunately there is often mistrust in the ability of IT to perform adequate and regular back-ups of stored information, and more importantly in the ability to restore information on demand. Butler Group believes that this is one of the reasons for reluctance on the part of staff to stop retaining a hard copy of electronic documents and records. This is where we believe that format back-up and recovery, disaster recovery, and business continuity strategies are so vital and necessary. However, the organisation should go further and ensure that these strategies are fully documented and that all employees are made aware of them so that they can be sure that procedures have been implemented to protect their information.
