Why Every Government Needs a Records and Information Management Working Group

Records management is a whole-of-government responsibility

Having served as a public officer in four Caribbean countries, I have seen the same challenge recur. Senior officers remain accountable for public records, but many agencies lack dedicated RIM resources and structured opportunities to collaborate. Records management often receives less coordinated support than Freedom of Information, privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, or digital transformation programmes—even though each of those programmes depends on well-managed information.

Organizational change is a constant in the public sector. Ministries are restructured. Departments merge. Statutory authorities are created. Responsibilities move, systems change, and digital services evolve. Throughout those transitions, public records must remain authentic, reliable, accessible, secure, and legally defensible.

Without coordination, the result is predictable: duplicated effort, conflicting rules, higher costs, uneven service, and greater legal and compliance risk. A government-wide RIM working group provides a practical governance mechanism for addressing shared problems once and applying the lessons across the public sector. It does not remove each agency’s accountability. It helps agencies fulfil that accountability consistently.

• Records classification and file plans
• Digital storage and collaboration platforms
• Retention and disposition schedules
• Electronic records management
• Information security and access controls
• Legacy paper and shared-drive records
• Records transfers and organizational change
• Long-term digital preservation

From isolated practitioners to a community of practice

One of the greatest benefits of a cross-government working group is the community of practice it creates. Instead of asking every ministry, department, or agency to solve the same problems independently, records professionals and their partners can share operational experience, develop common standards, exchange practical tools, identify emerging risks, test ideas, and build institutional knowledge.

Jamaica provides a useful Caribbean example. The Jamaica Archives and Records Department (JARD) coordinates the Government Records and Information Managers Network (G-RIM). The network brings public-sector RIM stakeholders together and supports a broader national programme rather than leaving each body to operate in isolation.

This collaborative model changes records management from a back-office administrative task into an enabler of public administration.

• Share operational experience and lessons learned
• Develop common standards and minimum requirements
• Exchange templates, tools, and implementation guidance
• Identify emerging legal, technological, and security risks
• Test ideas before government-wide adoption
• Build professional capability and institutional knowledge
• Give national archives timely feedback from the front line

Trusted information is the foundation of digital government

Digital transformation is not simply the replacement of paper with electronic documents. A scanned document can still be poorly classified. A cloud repository can still contain duplicates, obsolete information, and records with no defined owner or retention rule. Automation can make a weak process move faster without making it more accountable.

Successful digital government requires trusted information. Without sound records governance, digital transformation can become digital accumulation: ever-growing volumes of unmanaged content with declining operational and evidential value.

A cross-government RIM working group helps connect policy with technology. It gives records managers, archivists, information security specialists, privacy and access professionals, legal advisers, business leaders, and IT teams a forum in which to agree on common requirements before systems are purchased or processes redesigned.

• Preserve authenticity, integrity, and business context
• Remain findable and accessible to authorized users
• Meet legal, regulatory, and evidential requirements
• Support business continuity and disaster recovery
• Protect against unauthorized access, alteration, and loss
• Remain usable through technology and organizational change
• Be retained for the required period and defensibly disposed of afterward

Align RIM with strategic government priorities

Records management should not operate as a stand-alone compliance programme. Its priorities should be directly linked to the outcomes government is trying to achieve.

The Government of Jamaica RIM Programme illustrates this alignment. Its policy framework connects standardized records management with efficient service delivery, better decision-making, transparency, information security, business continuity, and preservation of national memory.

The lesson is simple: good records management is not an end in itself. It is infrastructure for better government.

• Better and faster public services
• Transparency and accountability
• Secure digital transformation
• Operational efficiency and cost control
• Effective access to information and privacy protection
• Enterprise risk management
• Business continuity and disaster resilience
• Preservation of institutional and national memory
• Responsible adoption of automation and AI

What an effective RIM working group should deliver

A working group creates value when it has a clear mandate and produces practical results. The aim is not to create another committee that only discusses problems. The aim is to establish a working mechanism that turns common challenges into reusable, government-wide solutions.

• Executive sponsorship: a senior sponsor who can remove barriers, secure participation, and connect RIM priorities to public-sector strategy
• Cross-functional membership: records management, national archives, IT, cybersecurity, privacy, access to information, legal, risk, business operations, and digital transformation
• Defined authority and scope: clarity about which matters the group can recommend, standardize, escalate, or approve
• A prioritized work programme: a manageable set of deliverables such as common templates, classification guidance, retention coordination, digital-record requirements, legacy-record strategies, or training
• Regular meetings and transparent decisions: a dependable cadence, documented actions, accountable owners, and a way to share outcomes across government
• Measures of progress: indicators such as agency participation, adoption of standards, approved retention schedules, reduction of legacy holdings, staff capability, compliance findings, and retrieval time

Jamaica shows how coordination can support implementation

The value of collaboration becomes visible when policy moves into operations. In April 2024, the Jamaica Information Service reported that 68 ministries, departments, and agencies had begun implementing the country’s RIM Programme. Activities included records surveys, policies and procedures, classification schemes, retention schedules, decongestion, authorized destruction, and preparation for electronic records management systems.

The significance of this example is not the number alone. It is the coordinated pathway: common policy, institutional leadership, agency-level committees, practical tools, professional support, and phased implementation.

Other governments do not need to copy Jamaica’s model exactly. They can adapt its central principle: shared information challenges require shared governance and a structured community capable of turning standards into practice.

Look beyond compliance—and prepare for AI

Compliance matters, but it is only the starting point. High-quality records management also supports better decisions, quicker citizen service, stronger cybersecurity, faster access to information, credible investigations and audits, digital preservation, and institutional memory.

It is also essential to AI readiness. AI systems depend on the quality, context, permissions, provenance, and retention status of the information they use. If source records are duplicated, misclassified, incomplete, inaccessible, or retained without control, AI can magnify those weaknesses. A RIM working group gives government a place to align information governance with AI governance before those risks are embedded at scale.

Leadership and collaboration make information trustworthy

Information is one of government’s most valuable strategic assets. Managing it effectively requires more than policies and technology. It requires leadership, collaboration, professional capability, and a shared commitment to continuous improvement.

A cross-government Records and Information Management working group brings together the people who create policy, operate systems, manage risk, preserve evidence, and deliver public services. With a clear mandate and practical work programme, it can reduce duplication, strengthen compliance, improve digital resilience, and build public trust.

Whether in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Barbados, elsewhere in the Caribbean, or beyond, investing in collaborative records management is ultimately an investment in better government.