Seaparo Phala

Preserving our administrative memory: A Business Case for an interoperable ECM Solution

Agenda

1. An overview: Department of Arts and Culture

2. DAC’s Constitutional Mandate

3. Towards fulfilling the DAC mandate

4. The Role of NARSSA on issues of electronic records managements

5. Current government challenges on information and records

management

6. Current technology landscape

7. Towards an interoperable ECM solution … Why?

8. Current Initiative

9. The role-players

10. Closure

An Overview: Department of Arts

and CultureStrategic priorities:-• Development, preservation and promotion of arts and

culture • Promotion and preservation of cultural heritage • To provide access to information• Promote the official languages of South Africa and

enhance the linguistic diversity of the country

Mzanzi Golden Economy: a strategy to ensure that the contributions of the arts, culture and heritage sector to economic growth and development can be quantified

Overview of DAC: Constitutional Mandate

Section 16(1): Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes:a. freedom of the press and other media;b. freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;c. freedom of artistic creativity; andd. academic freedom and freedom of scientific research

Section 30: Everyone has the right to use the language and to participate in the cultural life of their choice, but no one exercising these rights may do so in a manner inconsistent with any provision of the Bill of Rights. Section 32(1): Everyone has the right of access to:any information held by the state; and any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights

Towards fulfilling our Mandate

Enabling Access to Information• Aspiration to become the ‘Google of government’• Digitization of South African heritage resources –

Digitization Policy• Claim our space by fulfilling our regulatory role on

issues of information and records management in government through the National Archives and Records Service of SA

The role of NARSSA

• The National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (No.43 of 1996

as amended) gives National Archives and Records Service of SA (NARSSA) a

regulatory role re records management in government.

• According to Section 13 (2)(b)(iii) of the National Archives Act the National

Archivist shall determine the conditions subject to which electronic records

systems should be managed in governmental bodies.

• According to section 13 (2) (a), no public records can be transferred,

destroyed or otherwise disposed of without the written consent of the

National Archivisit

The role of NARSSA

The NARSSA requires governmental bodies to implement and maintain Integrated Document and Records Management System/Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system that provide as a minimum the following document and records management functionality:

managing a corporate file plan according to which records are filed;

managing e-mail as records; managing websites as records; maintaining the relationships

between records and files, and between file series and the file plan;

identifying records that are due for disposal and managing the disposal process;

associating the contextual and structural data within a document;

constructing and managing audit trails;

managing record version control; managing the integrity and

reliability of records once they have been declared as such; and

managing records in all formats in an integrated manner.

Current Challenges

• Governance challenges• Adverse audit findings due to poor records management• Inefficient administration e.g case files• Business processes not defined and documented• Compliance to legislation and the resulting litigation

• Government ECM systems that are not interoperable• Difficulties with information sharing between government departments

• Poor service delivery• Slow pace of information dissemination• Long waiting periods due to manual processes

Current landscape in government

Technologies deployed (List not exhaustive)

Functions and business processes automated

OpenTextDocumentumMicrosoft SharepointPaperTrailAlfrescoNuxeoOracle

Records managementSubmission workflowsCorrespondenceParliamentary questionsLeave managementContracts management

Case FilesPatient recordsHR recordsLegal records (management)

Towards an Interoperable ECM Solution

WHY?

For the Department of Arts and Culture and NARSSA:

• To fulfill our legislative mandate/policy role on records management • Enable access to government information• Build capacity and capability to accept ‘born digital records’ and electronic

records transfers from other government departments (every 20 years)• To have an up to date National Archives repository

Other reasons:• Open government – South Africa is a member of the Open Government

Partnership• Green ICT• Implementation of the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) Policy• Improve service delivery and address compliance challenges

Current Initiative• DAC and NARSSA has engaged the services of SITA to investigate, customizse and

deploy an interoperable ECM solution for the department and NARSSA

• The solution to be provided by SITA should address these policies:-

Managing electronic records in governmental bodies: Policy, principles and requirements

Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments adopted by the International Council on Archives in 2008. Module 2 of these publications, Guidelines and Functional Requirements for Electronic Records Management Systems relates to the structured records systems such as those in which records are managed according to a file plan.

• A product that complies with these standards or those contained in the European Commission’s Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records (MoReq2010) or the Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (US dod 5015.2) would ensure that the electronic records management application has the generic records management functionality required by NARSSA.

Current Initiative …… Cont

• Government departments and municipalities that have not deployed any systems could also tap into this system once fully deployed at DAC and NARSSA

• For the success of this initiative, we count on the support of:-

GITOC Through the Standing Committee on Knowledge and Information Management, to address duplication in government by promoting common solutions for common requirements across departments wherever possible

Lead a drive towards integration for new and existing systems

NARSSA Provide policy direction and regulatory directives on issues of information and records management

SITA Provide the technology support e.g through cloud technology but also ensure information systems security environment according to approved policy and standards.

In Conclusion

• A ‘Lula moment’ is still possible for the South African ICT space

“We had to choose: or we were going to the kitchen to prepare this dish the way we wanted to eat, with the seasoning that we

wanted, to give a Brazillian taste to our food, or …….”

President Lula da Silva, Brazil

THANK YOU, DANKIE, NGIYATHOKOZA, KE A LEBOHA,KE A LEBOGA, SIYABONGA, NDO LIVHUWA / RO LIVHUWA, ENKOSI,NGIYABONGA