IT Archiving and Back Ups Policy

In September 2023, RIMPA Global members in the Victorian Local Government Community of Practice and Local Ambassadors participated in a selective review process providing feedback on Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) Archiving and Back Ups Policy, originally published in 2012. 

The rich feedback provided by our Victorian members highlighted the need to:

• clearly distinguish between recordkeeping, operational systems of record and backup systems 
• clarify the differences between working copies, drafts, duplicates and backups
• strengthen messaging that backup systems are not systems of record
• further develop the risks of inefficient indexing and retrieval,  duplication, inaccessibility, lack of legislative compliance and potential compatibility and content longevity issues when backups are used as archival systems 
• reference complementary and supporting policies  which will aid understanding of these issues. 

PROV have advised that the policy will be revised in line with feedback received and then undergo a final review prior to publishing.

During the review local ambassador, Sandra Ennor, remarked that the work undertaken in this review continues to bridge the gap between IT and recordkeeping and RIMPA strongly encouraged that the document remain as a policy directive.

Thank you to all the members involved in providing rich and relevant feedback to the PROV and for strengthening the channels of communication for RIMPA Global.