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Government agencies are collectively spending tens of millions of dollars upgrading their IT archiving systems as a legislative deadline to improve public recordkeeping approaches.
The 2005 Public Records Act requires all Government agencies - including state-owned enterprises, Crown entities and local authorities - to meet improved electronic recordkeeping standards by 2010.
The act replaced the 1957 Archives Act and the document and archives provisions in the Local Government Act 1974, and was the Government's response to managing and retaining the mushrooming volume of official records now created electronically.
The looming compliance deadline is providing a business bonanza for software vendors as dozens of agencies open their chequebooks in order to meet the archiving requirements for electronic documents, emails and other information.
Treasury is the latest department to put its hand up for a new system. Last week it issued a call for expressions of interest from IT vendors for the provision of an electronic records management system.
The cost of upgrading Government systems to comply with the act will vary significantly from agency to agency. But Government tender records from two major agencies that have already bought electronic document management systems - the Ministry of Social Development and Land Information New Zealand - show each spent between $1.5 million and $1.75 million on their systems.
Under the act, Archives NZ chief executive Dianne Macaskill is required to commission independent audits of recordkeeping in public offices from 2010. Every agency is to be audited once every five to 10 years.
The tendering process as agencies scramble to install new technology to meet the auditing requirements has shed some light on the varying states of electronic recordkeeping within Government departments.
In a request for proposals to supply its document management system released last month, the Department of Labour said its 2500 staff currently used a wide variety of systems and processes for storing and managing business documents and records.
"The most noticeable characteristic of current practice across the whole of the department is the variability."
Mike Ross, New Zealand manager of IT company Objective, which has sold document management systems to more than a dozen Government agencies, said many departments were using the Public Records Act compliance process as a driver to improve their overall business efficiency.
The view that the act was helping to make Government agencies more efficient was backed up by Government department managers contacted by the Business Herald.
Brian Usherwood, general manager business support at Land Information NZ, said installing its new document management system in 2005 had given Linz the opportunity to improve several business processes.
A Ministry of Social Development spokeswoman said since its new system's installation in 2005 "there is greater awareness and focus on record keeping".
