A time of challenge and opportunity for RIM. (Up front: news, trends & analysis).

At a recent conference held in Bristol, United Kingdom (U.K.), "Records Management in Government," the U.K.'s Lord Chancellor Irvine of Lairg said now is a time of great opportunity and challenge for records management.

"The government's aim is to make the United Kingdom a leading knowledge economy in the world," he said in his speech. "All of us working in government organizations can help to ensure that our services are structured around the needs of people, are presented in ways they find easy to use, and are available at the time and through the channels which are most convenient to them."

It is good advice, but it is also a mandatory requirement for U.K. organizations. According to the Lord Chancellor, government departments face a major challenge in records management over the next three years to ensure that "government captures the authentic details of transactions made with the citizen; and also that it presents accurate, reliable, and useful information in return." He says U.K. records managers are working to ensure that all this information is kept current for as long as it is needed and that the rights of privacy, confidentiality, and security are upheld.

As minister for the Public Record Office (PRO), the Lord Chancellor is responsible for overseeing the achievement of Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2004 target for electronic records management.

A recent white paper," Modernising Government," set a target date of 2004 for U.K. government departments to be able to store and retrieve newly created records electronically. "The 2004 target date is only a staging post, not a finishing post," the Lord Chancellor explained. "Putting electronic records management to ever more practical use across government is a continuing process, underpinning ever-improving public services--electronic services which will have the confidence of everyone because of their reliability and integrity."

Government agencies and departments were required to draw up "publications schemes" under the U.K.'s Freedom of Information Act by November 30, 2002. These schemes set out what information each department will make available to the public on a routine basis, even before a request is received.

As we move more into the electronic age and electronic records usurp paper records, the Lord Chancellor said, records managers must ensure that the information contained in electronic records is managed better than in the past.

"Every department has to ensure that it has an effective collective memory, and that depends on the quality and ready accessibility of the records it maintains, as well as the way in which records on the same or related subjects are marshalled," he said.

According to a recent U.K. Online report, more than 50 percent of U.K. government services are now online. This includes information services like the "Just Ask" Web site, which provides fast, easy access to legal advice services and receives about 29,000 hits each week. It also includes transactional services such as Money Claim Online, by which civil court cases for up to 100,000 [pounds sterling] can be issued electronically, without setting foot in a court office.

The Lord Chancellor said that government departments must understand how they will use electronic records and establish policies and rules to ensure that future records, whether business or historical, are properly managed from their creation. "In doing so, departments will need to take into account the requirements of privacy and openness, and the data-sharing needs of other parts of government. This exchange has, of course, to be carefully managed to prevent any possible misuse," he said.

He said the greatest challenge will be applying the changes in working cultures and practices necessary to achieve the end goals. "The proper management of records will be the responsibility of everyone in an organization, to the extent that they create or use them in their daily work," he explained.