As relative latecomers to electronic records management, public sector organisations in Ireland are in a good position to take advantage of the experience of similar organisations in other countries. Such organisations have confirmed to us how mistakes have been made by not having the fundamentals in place, mistakes that can be avoided here in Ireland. The following case study of the experience of the Northern Ireland Prison Service highlights many of these issues.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service employs a staff of over 2,000 people and holds over 300,000 hard copy files. Unfortunately, prior to the Freedom of Information Act (2000), their approach to records management was unfocussed. Although there was some structure, owing to a centralised file Registry, there was difficulty in locating vital information. The arrival of FOI caused a civil service-wide re-appraisal of records management, led by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO). It was agreed that an Electronic Data Records Management System (EDRMS) would be introduced and Trim Context was chosen as the software. However, owing to the extremely sensitive nature of its records, the Prison Service needed a separate dataset, a separate Records Management Team and separate policies and procedures.

Steve Ireland, Senior Records and Information Manager at the Northern Ireland Prison Service, acknowledges that, owing to time pressures, the Service failed to engage in adequate preparation work and that Trim Context, was implemented too quickly leading to a number of problems:

• The Records Management Team did not initially have enough expertise in the area, which impeded their understanding of the core issues and led to an over-complicated file plan and massive duplication of files.
• The staff felt that they had not been consulted sufficiently and were under-prepared for the introduction of EDRMS. This combined with a lack of comprehension of the reasons for the implementation of the system led to a poor staff ‘take up’.
• Over-emphasis on technology led to a lack of the change management strategies, which are so important during the implementation of any records management system. The staff, therefore, were initially hostile to the new system.

Undaunted, the Service’s Records Management Team rallied by enlarging their own knowledge base and by improving the other staff’s perception of the system. New records management staff members were recruited and the existing staff availed of dedicated RM training. Armed with their newfound knowledge, they began to train all the staff, both individually and in groups, and to break down their resistance.

Despite the Service’s initial difficulties with the EDRMS, it proved immediately useful in complying with legislation, such as the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts. When documents were scanned into or created in Trim, the system produced meaningful metadata and simple methods of searching. The Service experienced reductions in both paper usage and the time spent preparing responses to queries under the above-mentioned legislation. A customised file plan enabled better information-sharing and instant access to vital records. Overall the system allowed more efficient and more cost effective working practices in the prison system, which led to fewer Court hearings.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service having successfully implemented the EDRMS, Trim Context, is now preparing for the challenges of political devolution in Northern Ireland and the requirement for greater integration of the Prison Service records system with the wider administration in NI. This will require a full-scale information audit of the current system and a new corporate file plan. This time, although again working under severe time-constraints, the Records Management Team hopes to ease the process by engaging in adequate preparation and providing a major programme of education and staff consultation.

The experience of the Northern Ireland Prison Service proves that no EDRMS will ‘work out of the box’. There are, in the first instance, a number of preliminary records management requirements that need to be put in place before a system can be introduced. Specifically an audit of the paper filing system needs to be undertaken followed by the drawing up of a master classification system, a file plan and retention schedules; it is also equally important to ensure that a programme of training and change management is deployed. The experience of the Northern Ireland Prison Service also proves that with the fundamentals in place the implementation of an EDRMS will bring the promised benefits of legislative compliance, better information-sharing, increased access to vital records and improved operational efficiencies to the whole organisation.

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