Archives: Records Management Policy of WC Governmental Bodies 2017

South Africa is an information society, that is, a society which recognizes the creation, distribution, use, integration and manipulation of information as a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The important role played by information as an important factor in the process of government administration and management has also been recognized by Governments world-wide including the Western Cape. This recognition is because information feeds many kinds of activities that contribute to service delivery, such as, decision-making, planning, problem-solving, innovation good governance and accountability. This information is kept in records. In an information society and in the digital working environment, recordkeeping and archiving are demanding and exciting because records are in various formats and Records Managers have to work in challenging multi-dimensional environments.

Records are created or received during the conduct of business and contain information and evidence of organizational activities. Public records are key to accountability and good governance because they reflect the government's functions, activities, procedures and the administrative processes that generate them, as well as the facts, acts, and transactions affiliated to them. In a nutshell records enable governmental bodies to function. The important role of records in governmental bodies therefore cannot be over-estimated. Records prove what you did, why you did it and the results of that action. To be useful however, records must be managed effectively.

The focus of records management is on the creation, evaluation, storage, access, retrieval, dissemination, use and disposition of records in any form or media. Records management is therefore not media specific or limited by time and space. Hence the Western Cape Archives and Records Service (WCARS) has adopted the Records Continuum Model (RCM) which integrates records management with business processes and society, upholds the continuous use of records, and addresses management of both paper and electronic records.

Please see the online version of the Records Management Policy of Western Cape Governmental Bodies 2017.