32875 TheWorld Bank M a r c h PREMnotes 2 0 0 5 n u m b e r 9 7 Public Sector Fostering trust and transparency through information systems Reliable official recordkeeping systems provide evidence that is crucial to account- able, transparent democracies. How can countries improve such systems? Effective records management is a cross- E-applications are not the whole cutting issue. Initiatives aimed at enhancing solution economic performance, increasing govern- In its early stages electronic government ment accountability, and strengthening civil focused on developing technology and archi- society--such as anticorruption efforts, tecture to support online delivery of govern- administrative and civil service reform, ment services and information. Increasingly, Many development decentralization, electronic government, though, the focus is on the integrity of infor- legal and judicial reform, public expendi- mation created through electronic applica- goals depend ture management, tax policy and adminis- tions. As government services move online, tration, and access to information--all rely e-records will be used to confirm pensions and on trustworthy on access to accurate evidence. other entitlements, register births and deaths, Yet ineffective control of records is com- verify citizenship, certify voting rights, enable evidence mon in many countries, and often takes sim- the collection of taxes and censuses, support ilar forms. Mountains of paper fill offices financial management and audits help resolve and corridors, while record storage areas land claims, support litigation, document inter- have become the "Siberia" to which diffi- governmental agreements, enable economic cult staff are sent--creating enormous scope planning, document development, and sup- for corruption. The causes are also similar: port countless other information-intensive outdated skills, laws, and institutional activities. Unless there is adequate infrastruc- arrangements; lack of policies, standards, ture for managing e-records, the intended ben- and practices for creating, organizing, using, efits of e-government will be compromised. and disposing of records as evidence; lack The speed at which information tech- of awareness of the significance of records nologies and e-records are being adopted for governance; and lack of political will to around the world is not being matched by protect evidence. the skills and infrastructure needed to man- There is widespread agreement that com- age them. E-records must remain accessible puterization offers the way forward. But com- and usable as long as they are needed for puterization creates new challenges, by business or legal purposes; some need to be creating electronic records that will not remain preserved over the long term or perma- reliable and authentic unless carefully man- nently. If e-records are to survive and be valid aged. E-records are subject to loss because of in the future, governments must address their reliance on changing technologies, their issues such as media instability and deteri- storage on fragile media, and their depen- oration, obsolescence and incompatibility dence on documentation that may be inade- of hardware, software, data formats, and stor- quate or missing. Globally, there is little age media, lack of metadata or contextual capacity to manage e-records as evidence. information (which makes it difficult to from the development economics vice presidency and povert y reduction and economic management network access information or use it meaningfully), · One of the greatest challenges facing and lack of clearly assigned responsibilities South Africa is the transformation of its and resources for long-term preservation. court system. An integrated justice system The issues were explored in a three-year is being developed, and records man- (2002­04) project on Evidence-Based Gov- agement is considered an integral part of ernance in the Electronic Age, funded by the management of court business. The the World Bank's Development Grant Facil- national archives has statutory responsi- ity. Consultations with government officials bility for overseeing records management and records professionals from 38 English- and is seeking to introduce records man- speaking developing countries--including agement controls--though this is diffi- face to face, electronic, and videoconfer- cult, given limited resources. These Many developing ence meetings facilitated by the World Bank responsibilities are beginning to be trans- Institute--identified weak legal and insti- lated into the electronic environment, countries lack tutional frameworks, lack of accountability, but infrastructure and systems are needed and inadequate training as common imped- to ensure that e-records will survive intact a systematic iments to keeping accurate evidence. Case and that vital metadata will be preserved. studies showed little evidence of a system- · In Ecuador poor records management is approach to atic approach to managing records. a key issue undermining court perfor- mance, with huge accumulations of managing records Better records management is poorly managed files contributing to inef- crucial to legal and judicial ficiency and waste. A reform program reform starting in 1996 introduced guidelines for The growing emphasis on transparency and managing records at every stage of their the need to reduce large backlogs of court life cycle, and the creation of electronic cases have led to case management reforms networks has facilitated the sharing of and greatly increased use of court technol- information about cases. As a result the ogy and electronic filing--highlighting the case management system and informa- need for effective management of case files tion requests are handled more efficiently. and other court records. Well-managed court But sustainability may be an issue, because records are essential to efficient, effective there are no professionally trained legal systems. They are the means by which records managers in the judiciary, and citizens and organizations are able to the national archives does not play a sig- enforce their rights, and they support nificant role in managing legal records. accountability by making the judiciary In addition, the legal admissibility of e- more transparent. Accurate, readily acces- records and long-term requirements for sible records of judicial rulings reduce the keeping them need to be addressed. potential for illicit manipulation resulting · In 1990 Singapore embarked on reforms from delays, corruption, and inaccuracies. that have transformed its legal system into Dysfunctional records management a model of efficiency and effective use of undermines legal and judicial reform. Deci- technology. An electronic filing system has sions are made without full information made case information and court records about cases, and the absence of systematic more readily available to judges, court per- recordkeeping and controls leaves scope for sonnel, and lawyers. Policies and proce- corruption or collusion between court offi- dures have been established for creating, cials and lawyers. Court time is wasted, delays maintaining, and disposing of e-records. are created, and the judiciary's standing is E-records are accepted as legal evidence, lowered. The large volume of records pass- and are sent to the national archives in ing through a typical court system, their sen- their original electronic form. There they sitivity, and time pressures on courts makes are transferred to microfilm as low-cost effective records management essential. means of preservation, but in the process Three cases illustrate the issues involved: their interactive functionality is lost. PREMnote 97 March 2005 Well-managed records are vital spending, to demonstrate accountability to financial management reform for public funds. Although much of the Reliable, timely, accessible financial records country's financial management system should provide evidence that resources have is still paper-based, aspects of financial been received, committed, or spent so that management have been computerized, accountants can prepare financial reports and an integrated financial management for public scrutiny and external auditors information system has been introduced. can ensure that the reports are credible. However, the link between paper and e- Weak systems result in vast quantities of records has not been defined. financial records being kept longer than · Chile, a pioneer in e-government, has necessary, while essential records are hard introduced a substantial program to mod- to find. The result can be high levels of ernize management of public finances, Requirements unvouched spending, where there are no including an integrated financial man- payment vouchers or other documents to agement and resource allocation system. for capturing substantiate the authenticity of expendi- This will have major implications for tures--leading to unresolved audit queries financial records management. In prepa- and preserving and creating opportunities for fraud, cor- ration for a paperless work environment, rupt procurement, and money laundering. legislation has been passed on electronic e-records need Requirements for capturing and pre- documents and certification of e-signa- serving e-records need to be integrated with tures. But questions remain about the to be integrated financial management information systems legal admissibility of e-records, and the to support system integrity over time. Oth- lack of a strategy for managing and pre- with financial erwise, governments, donors, and lenders serving them over time presents risks for may face unnecessarily high risks for the long-term integrity and access. management significant investments they make in such systems. Again, three cases illustrate the Recent advances in records information systems issues involved. management · Vietnam has made good progress in Ghana and Tanzania show that improve- strengthening financial management but ments in records management are achiev- has not tackled the issue of managing able and sustainable. For several decades financial records. The national archives both countries suffered crippling declines plays no role in records management. The in the management of official records. But Ministry of Finance has issued guidelines with support from the U.K. Department for on which records should be kept, for how International Development, they have long, and in what condition, and this has achieved improvements and laid the foun- helped ensure that financial records can dations for managing records created by be readily accessed during audits. But reg- electronic applications. New laws, policies, ulations permitting the destruction of and procedures have been introduced in financial records are often not applied, line with international good practices and and inactive records are beginning to local resource constraints. Closed files have accumulate, causing storage and retrieval been transferred to low-cost storage or problems. Although computerization is destroyed, and filing systems have been widespread in government departments restructured to support modern adminis- and an integrated financial management trative functions. The improvements have information system has been proposed, been robust, reliable, and sustainable, and Vietnam has not developed the capacity have increased the demand for accurate evi- to manage e-records. dence. Ghana and Tanzania are now apply- · Financial reforms have been under way ing their new records management practices in Tanzania since 1992. The controller to court, financial, land, and human re- and accountant general has stressed the source records and introducing e-records need to drastically reduce unvouched management programs. PREMnote 97 March 2005 New technologies and products for man- ough evaluation. RMCAS is mapped aging e-records are emerging, including against the International Organization for records management application software, Standardization's Records Management electronic document and records man- Standard (ISO 15489). Based on infor- agement systems, enterprise content man- mation from users and creators of records, agement systems, and information lifecycle it diagnoses records management capac- management systems. Governments need ity on a scale of 0 to 5 and provides links to adopt standards for evaluating these to appropriate training materials. products. EC Model Requirements for the As an example involving legal and judi- Management of Electronic Records pro- cial reform, the tool asks: "Are new cases vide an example of functional requirements always registered or captured in a record- Improvements in for electronic recordkeeping systems. keeping system as soon as the first docu- Although existing technologies provide ment is received?" Countries (or agencies) records management a foundation on which to build e-records score level 2 capacity if every new case is management solutions, none addresses all registered or captured as soon as the first are achievable and the requirements for protecting the authen- related document is received. As an exam- ticity of e-records or guards against the ple in financial management, the tool asks: sustainable inevitable obsolescence of the various lay- "Are loan agreement data entered into the ers of technology (data formats, software, system immediately after agreements are hardware, storage media) involved. Thus signed?" Level 2 capacity is achieved if government agencies need to develop the responsibilities are clearly specified for capacity to implement and maintain flexi- maintaining debt management records ble technical architectures. This will require and for compliance with debt manage- support for records management policies ment recordkeeping requirements. and procedures, education for records man- These tools, developed and tested in coop- agers and information technology staff, and eration with developing country partners, training for end users. should support operational work by helping to ensure that records are managed effec- Assessing capacity to manage tively to support transparency and integrity records as part of the reform process. They are avail- Two new tools gauge records manage- able free of charge at www.irmt.org. The Web- ment infrastructure and capacity and so site also contains 13 case studies on records help task teams strengthen data integrity. management conducted in Africa, Asia, and The E-Records Readiness Tool, developed Latin America. by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Records Management This note was written by Anne Thurston (Direc- Trust, can be used with existing e-gov- tor, International Records Management Trust, ernment readiness tools at the national and Director, Evidence-Based Governance in the and agency levels. Electronic Age Project). Where problems are identified that If you are interested in similar topics, con- require further analysis, Records Man- sider joining the Administrative and Civil Ser- agement Capacity Assessment System vice Reform Thematic Group. Contact Ranjana (RMCAS) software, developed by the Trust Mukherjee (x34301) or click on Thematic Groups and the World Bank, enables a more thor- on PREMnet. This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on PREM-related topics. The views expressed in the notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank. PREMnotes are widely dis- tributed to Bank staff and are also available on the PREM Website (http://prem). If you are interested in writing a PREMnote, email your idea to Madjiguene Seck. For additional copies of this PREMnote please contact the PREM Advisory Service at x87736. PREMnotes are edited by Paul Holtz and laid out by Suzanne Luft. Prepared for World Bank staff