In a world where nearly everything we do generates some kind of paper trail, the mismanagement of the documentary evidence of our actions can be devastating and costly. Losing records, or being found to have inappropriately disposed of them, can result in costly fines and can damage a company or individual’s reputation. And these consequences also apply to the largest “corporations” of all: governments.
It is interesting how often governments are guilty of sloppy record keeping and how often it takes a crisis to remind people of how important it is to be able to prove what did or didn’t happen. Trustworthy records create a space for a more accountable government and yet so often records management is an afterthought.
During this past summer, The Japan Times published an online article about the recent string of political scandals involving the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The article linked several of the scandals to suspicious records management practices in the Japanese government.
In three separate instances, Abe and his cabinet were accused of giving special treatment to Abe’s personal friends Moritomo and Kake in contractual agreements, as well as to Abe’s favoured Defense Minister, who was found to have covered up daily logs of Japan’s Defense Force peacekeeping operations in South Sudan.
When questioned, those involved claimed that the records from these important transactions had either never been “public records,” or had been destroyed in accordance with the Public Records and Archives Management Act (PRAMA).
Japan is a bit of a late-comer to the idea of governmental transparency, especially in regard to records. It was only in 2011 that PRAMA was implemented. This act requires the government to “prepare, register and preserve administrative papers” (Reiji Yoshida, Japan Times) so that any member of the public can view them. The act also stipulates that records must be kept for a designated amount of time, depending on their importance, and cannot be destroyed before that period is up.
These laws were put in place to increase governmental accountability and the transparency of the decision-making process. But, the recent scandals show that the laws have some major flaws. As the Japan Times notes, each individual ministry is “authorized to judge the degree of importance of each paper. If a ministry judges that documents don’t fall into the category of ‘historical public records and archives’ it can set the preservation period at less than one year.” This allows the administration to quickly dispose of records it doesn’t want anyone to see. Also, the public can only view records which have been designated “public”, and not as personal memos.
Clearly these (deliberately?) bad record keeping practices cause problems both for the government, and more importantly, for the public. They resulted not only in decreased ratings for Abe but also in the loss of public trust with regard to his administration.
It seems that these problems could be easily fixed if the government took a more contentious look at basic records management principles. For example, what really are “administrative papers”? It should be obvious that in a democracy, any records created by public officials with regards to their job should be classified as public records. How could they be anything else? And yet the legislation is not clear about its own definitions. As a result, records may be easily destroyed, either by accident or on purpose because they were incorrectly classified. A redefinition of terms is needed. This must include a clear outline of the differences between a public record and a private one with a basis in solid archival principles.
In addition, more records management professionals are needed, as well as becoming separate from the ministries themselves. A government should provide records managers and information management professionals with the power and ability to participate in the entire life cycle of records from beginning to end. Individual ministries cannot be solely responsible for deciding how long to keep their own records. Outside supervision and advice should be required for disposition schedules to be implemented.
Records managers should have the autonomy to make sure that appropriate schedules are being followed. The current legislation does not give records professionals enough objective input in the management of records throughout their entire life cycle. It appears that the Japanese government still thinks of records as something that documents become once they are no longer being used. They don’t see them as current and active parts of business which need to be managed and maintained.
The negative example of how Japan has managed its records shows that good record keeping is an extremely important part of a functioning democracy. In fact, the information disclosure and accountability which result from managing administrative records properly is a foundation of the democratic idea. If a government is serious about transparency and accountability, then it needs to take the important role of records and records managers seriously. Laws should support records management and not hinder it. Records managers are an integral part of good governance and could help provide the answers to Japan’s issues if utilized properly. Records management must be an integral part of a government’s administrative structure because without a solid system people are less likely to trust their government.
The Japan Times Article: