Records Management Policy 2022

Scope

The Records Management Policy applies to all employees of the council including elected members, contract, agency and temporary staff, volunteers and employees of partner organisations working for the council. It is directly related to all data captured and records created, maintained and destroyed across all council systems, processes and procedures whether in physical or electronic form.

Standards

There are five key standards the council uses to ensure the quality of the records and data it uses for managing and reporting and to enable compliance with ISO15489-1:2001.

Information and documentation records management key standards: 

• Governance and leadership - there is a corporate framework for management and accountability of records and data quality, with a commitment to secure a culture of data quality throughout the organisation
• Policies - there are appropriate policies and procedures in place to secure the quality of the data recorded and uses for reporting
• Systems and processes - there are systems and processes which secure the quality and protection of records and data as part of the normal business activity of the organisation
• People and skills - there are arrangements in place to ensure that staff have the appropriate knowledge, competencies and capacity for their roles in relation to records management and data quality
• Data use and reporting - there are arrangements in place that are focused on ensuring that data and records that support reported information is actively used in the decision-making process, and is subject to a system of internal control and validation

Principles

The council has six key principles applicable to the management of its data:

• Accuracy - data and consequent records should be sufficiently accurate for their intended purposes, representing clearly and in sufficient detail the interaction provided at the point of activity. The need for accuracy must be balanced with the importance of the uses of the data, and the costs and effort of collection
• Validity - data and consequent records should be used in compliance with relevant requirements, including the correct application of any rules or definitions
• Reliability - data and consequent records should reflect stable and consistent collection processes across collection points and over time, whether using manual or computer-based systems, or a combination
• Timeliness - data and consequent records should be captured and created as quickly as possible after the event or activity and must be available for the intended use within a reasonable time period. Data and records must be available quickly and frequently enough to support information needs and to influence the appropriate levels of service or management decisions
• Relevance - data captured and records created should be relevant to the purposes for which it is used
• Completeness - data and record requirements should be clearly specified based on the information needs of the organisation and data collection and records management processes matched to these requirements

Last updated: 24/11/2022 11:49