During another discussion about the GAO about a month ago I posted the following from my notes at my local ARMA Chapter meeting. It is the basics of the GAO BBT schedule. IIRC for those records which do not fit into any of the buckets, they rely on the GRS.
Mission - 5 year retention from the close of the case/file · This bucket holds Testimony, Engagement & Investigation Case Files, Engagement Management Files
Policy & Special Collections - Permanent or Long-term retention - This bucket holds Agency Reports & Publications, Legal Decisions, Historically Significant Engagement Files, Agency Directives,
Senior Executive Files
Administrative - 7 year retention from the close of file or end of year - This bucket holds · Budget, Building & Property Management, Congressional Relations, Equal Employment Opportunity, Finance,
Freedom of Information Act, Library Services, Human Capital, Information Systems & Technology, Procurement, Safety, Travel, Etc.
Tod Chernikoff, CRM
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From: "Jesse Wilkins" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:36
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [RM] Everything is a record until it is not
Let me also make one other point. IIRC, records management started out as space management - in other words, since organizations couldn't keep everything for forever due to space, there had to be a way to distinguish between "stuff to keep" and "stuff to get rid of". That's a fundamental first principle of records management.
Many of the classification schemes we've created over the years - Dewey Decimal, LOC, etc. have then been used as a mechanism to provide metadata to the physical world. Indeed, the analogy for poor metadata/indexing is often that of a library with all the books piled in the middle of the floor, or with the books on the shelves but their covers ripped off, etc. A filing cabinet really isn't much more than record+metadata - why is this paper put in this folder, drawer, cabinet, room, etc.
So put these two together and you end up with the traditional paper-oriented records retention schedule that is doing double duty for retention and findability. If you dissociate those two things, and I'd argue in the electronic world you not only can but should, then retention goes back to being what it started as: what to keep and what to get rid of. Sure, you could make hundreds or thousands of rules based on the specific requirements of dozens or hundreds of statutes and regulations - or you could say here are 3 buckets: Short-term (less than a year), mid-term (1-10 years), and long-term/undetermined/permanent/whatever. Make it 4 buckets. 5 buckets.
Whatever. The point is, and the point I think most of the BBT proponents make, is to use the right tools for findability and to make retention as simple as possible. Again, that may mean a slightly higher storage cost and a slightly increased risk that you'd produce something that might have been disposable earlier. But those risks in most cases and for most organizations are acceptable compared to the benefits of understanding and complying with retention requirements.
Regards,
jesse
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