{"id":13,"date":"2017-12-06T16:12:23","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T23:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/?p=13"},"modified":"2018-01-01T12:17:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T19:17:17","slug":"the-bosses-dont-care-about-the-rules-by-jennifer-abel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/?p=13","title":{"rendered":"The Bosses Don\u2019t Care About The Rules<\/em> by Jennifer Abel<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Want to know a secret? Records retention schedules don\u2019t really matter to our elected leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the fall of 2017, a series of articles by Karen Howlett appeared in the <\/span>Globe and Mail<\/span><\/i> detailing the trial of <\/span>two former high-level staff members<\/span><\/a> in the Ontario Premier\u2019s office. David Livingston, the Chief of Staff for former Premier Dalton McGuinty, and Laura Miller, his Deputy, were charged with criminal breach of trust, mischief, and unauthorized use of a computer. The case concerned the alleged destruction of e-mails and other government records in 2013, relating to the cancellation of two gas-fired power plant projects in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While the case was based on circumstantial evidence \u2013 and one of the charges against the pair was <\/span>dismissed early in November 2017<\/span><\/a> \u2013 it nevertheless raises big questions about how the Ontario government views records management, the differences between public servants and politicians, and whether records retention schedules really lead to accountable and transparent governments. <\/span><\/p>\n

Records management professionals hold that records retention schedules are a key piece of <\/span>any information governance program<\/span>, including <\/span>electronic records<\/span>, and that they need to be updated regularly to meet the changing needs of a business or governmental organization. The website of the <\/span>Archives of Ontario<\/span><\/a> \u2013 the organization responsible for overseeing recordkeeping in the Ontario government \u2013 shows that the current records retention schedules for cabinet members\u2019 offices, <\/span>including the Premier\u2019s Office<\/span><\/a>, were developed in 2015. Appendix B of the <\/span>Ministerial Office Schedule<\/span><\/a> suggests that there were some kind of rules for records disposition as far back as 2002, but that there was a complete revision of the schedule in 2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s no indication that there was a similar schedule for the Premier\u2019s Office before 2015, which leads to the possibility that there were <\/span>no recordkeeping rules <\/b>for that office until <\/span>two years after<\/b> the alleged deletions. Could this be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has run away?<\/span><\/p>\n

Even in the current schedules, there are surprising omissions and huge loopholes. Correspondence \u2013 which, in most people\u2019s view, would include e-mail \u2013 is explicitly dealt with in one section of each schedule. However, that\u2019s only correspondence which is handled by a \u201ccorrespondence services unit\u201d on behalf of a minster or the Premier (see p. 21 of the <\/span>Ministerial Office Schedule<\/span><\/a>, and p. 20 of the <\/span>Premier\u2019s Office Schedule<\/span><\/a>). There are mentions of correspondence in the section on ministers\u2019 public records, including records in \u201cany form made or received by the minister in response to legislative, policy, program and stakeholder files\u201d (see p. 19). But there\u2019s really nothing further about correspondence in the Premier\u2019s Office schedule, except for correspondence that might relate to preparing Throne Speeches or budgets. <\/span><\/p>\n

I specifically mentioned \u201ccorrespondence\u201d in the preceding paragraph because there\u2019s <\/span>no specific mention of e-mails<\/b> in either of those records retention schedules. None. Zero. Not as a section on their own, nor in the descriptions of records organized under various functions. And finally, no mention of emails regarding the records of high-level government officials in the schedules created in 2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

Let that sink in for a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, contrast that with how e-mail is dealt with in the records management training given to members of the Ontario Public Service. In the Records Management 101(available as a document <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>) and <\/span>102<\/span><\/a> training sessions, public servants \u2013 <\/span>the people who actually make government work<\/span><\/a> \u2013 are <\/span>repeatedly<\/b> told that the e-mails they send or receive as part of the government-related activities they undertake are both public records and business records, and <\/span>must be saved<\/b> and stored in commonly accessible electronic repositories<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Premier, the Cabinet Ministers, and their staff members, like Livingston and Miller, aren\u2019t members of the Ontario Public Service. So this, presumably, doesn\u2019t apply to them. Again, let that sink in: <\/span>the people who carry out the work have to save their e-mails, but the people who make the decisions that lead to that work being done don\u2019t.<\/b><\/p>\n

And look again at the charges against Livingston and Miller: breach of trust, mischief, and unauthorized use of a computer. There are <\/span>no charges related to the actual destruction of records.<\/b><\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s <\/span>2006 Archives and Recordkeeping Act<\/span><\/a> mandates that public records \u201cshall not be, (a) destroyed or damaged; (b) altered so as to delete information from [them]; (c) made illegible; (d) removed from the custody or control of a public body or the Archives of Ontario; or (e) concealed from a public body or the Archivist.\u201d (section 15, subsection 1). However, there are no teeth to this prohibition: the Act doesn\u2019t stipulate any consequences for destroying records. And in the very next subsection (section 15, subsection 2), exceptions are made for anything done \u201cin accordance with an approved records schedule\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if an approved records schedule is in place that doesn\u2019t mention e-mail, and e-mails which are public records are destroyed, but there are no direct consequences for destroying public records anyway\u2026well, why should a ministerial staffer care?<\/span><\/p>\n

And if there wasn\u2019t an approved records schedule in place? Well, then nobody would mind, unless there happened to be a public outcry that someone felt compelled to investigate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The system has been built in such a way that keeping e-mail records \u2013 arguably one of the most important ways in which most of us communicate nowadays \u2013 is not seen as something politicians and political insiders need to be concerned with. And the records retention schedules now in place could be argued to be little more than a retroactive band-aid designed to lull the public into thinking the government believes that records matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

As long as there are loopholes for people to exploit, they will be exploited. And the records retention schedule for the Ontario Premier\u2019s Office is just one big loophole.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Want to know a secret? Records retention schedules don\u2019t really matter to our elected leaders. In the fall of 2017, a series of articles by Karen Howlett appeared in the Globe and Mail detailing the trial of two former high-level staff members in the Ontario Premier\u2019s office. David Livingston, the Chief of Staff for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55514,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3142386,3142263,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-information-and-public-accountability","category-ethics-of-managing-current-records","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/55514"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/arst516\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}