Re:"The gap between establishing a system of controls to serve a business
purpose and control costs, and the establishment of controls purely to meet
increasingly complex legal demands begins to widen. This makes the cost
justification of such control systems more difficult, and tends to lead to
an understandable unwillingness to fund such systems with the idea that "it
will never happen to us". Then "it" happens and we have the kind of "gotcha"
moments we increasingly see occurring."

I agree. RMs are now having a major challenge professionally and on projects
retaining control of the Retention issues and systems. Many times, I have
watched ERM software projects have their funds diverted to email archiving
systems or e-discovery software with no really defined payback, even when I
have testimony from their own internal auditors saying the organization's
personnel are not following existing RM policies. (I guess they are getting
the new technology so employees can do whatever they want with it.)

The three most fundamental reasons for RM retention of records are
OPERATIONAL (including "administrative"), regulatory, and legal reasons.
(Archvists will add "historical".) The last three are OVERHEAD and do not
add value to the organization's bottom line. (Now the lawyers jump up with
allegations that reducing business risk is an added value, blah, blah, blah.
And the regulators say that without their approval the products will not be
allowed in the marketplace, or whatever. Simply - threats.). Anyway, the
costs for "recordkeeping" for non-operational reasons increase with little
or no quantifiable payback related to the actual products produced. But, try
telling an organization's chief legal counsel they do not add real value to
the business processes (making widgets) and see how long you stay on the
project!

Legal and Regulatory reasons for records retention are "unfunded mandates"
by government and will only add increasing costs to business and personal
activities. It seems to me that if we do not get a way to model and cost out
any benefits from these reasons for retention other than vague adverse
consequences, we can not really predict the costs of recordkeeping.

John




********************************
John T. Phillips
MSLS, CRM, CDIA, FAI
Electronic Records Management
Consulting, Education, Research
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of WALLIS Dwight D
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 12:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: RAINdrop: Sarah Palin's E-Mail Hacked

Ginny Jones wrote: As Dwight said - once the lawyers got involved,
interpretation of the laws have made our RM lives more and more complex.

PeterK wrote: and they are getting even more complex

And the problem, Peter and Ginny, is that as these legal issues increase in
complexity, the point that John made in a previous posting about diminishing
returns becomes more serious. The gap between establishing a system of
controls to serve a business purpose and control costs, and the
establishment of controls purely to meet increasingly complex legal demands
begins to widen. This makes the cost justification of such control systems
more difficult, and tends to lead to an understandable unwillingness to fund
such systems with the idea that "it will never happen to us". Then "it"
happens and we have the kind of "gotcha"
moments we increasingly see occurring. Note that I have very little sympathy
for many of the figures caught in such issues - like I said, if you can't
stand the heat etc... In fact, if there is any justification for any of
this, it is that it has uncovered real cases of malfeasance.
However, I have a lot of sympathy for taxpayers. I have a lot of sympathy
for our disadvantaged clients who may be seeing one less nurse or receiving
one less vaccination because we had to fund an expensive system of controls.
My sense is that this will ultimately be resolved not through legal change,
but through technological means - the controls will become more
sophisticated, and the costs will drop. However, this has not yet occurred,
and trends are not encouraging in this regard, particularly when we consider
that just when we get a handle on e-mail (for example), it may become
obsolete. Its possible that the only real solution may lie in better
defining and driving home the distinction between "evidence" and "records"
and incorporating that into our control systems, perhaps even engaging in
some advocacy on this with our respective legislatures. This would at least
better focus costs, and, in my opinion, actually improve transparency.

Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution and Stores
(FREDS)
1620 S.E. 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
Phone: (503)988-3741
Fax: (503)988-3754
[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from
this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE
RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]