Agenda item

The Committee considered an update report on the progress made with regard to the electronic and physical storage of records, including the options considered and the associated costs requested following the Information Governance progress report presented to Committee in February, 2015.

Following the last meeting, a comprehensive review had been carried out of the current records management stores and implement a new Council wide records management solution by identifying suitable Governance premises or an alternative solution to house the Council records.

A number of options were considered when reviewing the current records management stores, which were as follows:-

·         Develop our own internal solution for all records management;

·         Move the records held at Thorne to a Council building and work to merge the current three records stores at a later date;

·         Tender for a commercial managed corporate records management solution; and

·         A further option of leaving the records in their current locations was also considered as part of this review. (However the current costs for storage across the 3 locations compared with the costs published in the ESPO framework number 2957 – Document Storage and Retrieval Service, indicated that significant savings could be achieved by going out to tender).

Following analysis of the options, it was identified that the best option was to tender for a commercial managed corporate records management solution. It was noted that the current supplier was not using the ESPO Framework and the Council made a decision to procure via full European Union tender.

It was advised that due to legal negotiations and the dispute around a current contract, the new contract had only just been awarded to one of the tendering suppliers and the Council were currently working with them to develop a comprehensive implementation plan.

Councillor John Healy showed his concern with regard to the current position the Local Authority archives and sought an up to date costing analysis in relation to the records that were kept electronically. He also sought clarification as to how many years the Council were legally obliged to maintain and keep records for. It was advised that generally most records need to be kept for a year period. However, there are records that Council has that are required to be kept on record for life. Members were advised that the team were currently identifying the records that need to be kept and those that could be destroyed and there was a significant amount of indexing worked to be carried out. Members were provided with a brief update as to the current situation and the work being undertaken so far.

Councillor John Healy also expressed concern with regard to Data Protection and whether the risk had now been reduced following the introduction of the action plan and new contract agreement. It was advised that the risk had reduced considerably and the team had confidence in the new company who were considered to be very professional.

A query was made in relation to the removal costs associated with Copley House and Balby Archives highlighted at paragraph 34 of the report and what the cost would be. It was reported that the documents had not been kept in the required conditions and there will be a significant amount of re-boxing to be done of which will have some one-off costs attached to it. It was advised that a quote had been received and officers were currently working through that. It was advised that it may be most cost effective to scan the documents but there is a need to have all the boxes in one place before that can be considered.

With regard to the 3.5 million digital files, Councillor Susan Durant asked whether there was a plan in place to look at these. It was reported that at this time it was too soon to give commitment to this. It was advised that a small team of staff were looking into this and more work would need to be carried out before the development of protocols could take place.

Councillor Susan Durant requested clarity with regard to FOI requests particularly in relation to private properties i.e. un-adopted roads. She asked how these would be managed and filtered to each department and whether this would have any impact on the work the team were carrying out. It was reported that the Council perform very well with FOI requests. There are a few difficulties that occur with non-computerised, physical records but the Council does their best they can. Members were advised that most of the physical records were personal, benefit claim information and it was not very often that requests would be made in relation to un-adopted roads etc. It was noted that there were occasions when a record cannot be found which is where the indexing of records will prove helpful.

Councillor Richard Allan Jones expressed his disappointment in relation to the negotiations on-going with the existing contractor at Thorne and highlighted that the estimated savings from this exercise would be halved as a result on the on-going negotiations. Councillor Jones stated that out of the 3.5m files, there must be some that are out of date. He asked whether the Council had appropriate back-up systems in place. It was reported that with regard to physical files there was no back-up which was why the scanning of documents was taking place but there was full electronic back-up. With regard to the existing contract, it was advised that the Council were negotiating a financial settlement with the company. However, the Council were primarily to blame as the contract was poor and weak and data protection element was not satisfactory all of which falls within the responsibility of the Council.

It was reported that this exercise was at pilot stage but it was envisaged that it would be rolled out across the Council. It was noted that this project could take up to 2 years to complete but it was hoped that 75% of the work would be completed in year 1 with a further 25% in year 2.

            RESOLVED that the report be noted and a further report be brought           back to the Committee in 6 months.