| Task | Things to remember | Tips |
|---|---|---|
| Get senior management support | Highlight the benefits to the organisation such as increased efficiency and cost reduction | Try telling them what could go wrong (or indeed has gone wrong) if you don’t do this. Highlighting the risks is sometimes a more effective approach |
| Get support from the business | Highlight the benefits to the business area such as making it easier to find, use and share the information they need | It may help to 'brand' the work in a slightly different way to gain interest and increase understanding, for example, instead of 'disposal' you might want to use the phrase 'What to keep' |
| Understand what your organisation does | Pay particular attention to core or statutory function | Use websites, for example .gov.uk, annual reports, mission statements and talk to business areas |
| Find out what information your organisation has | It is essential to work closely with business areas as they have knowledge of business processes and the information that they create/hold | Ask information representatives within business areas to help with this work if you have them |
| Find out where your information is held | Consider all digital sources and don’t forget the lifecycle of the technology used and any interdependencies between systems | Ask your IT department for help with this |
| Document what you know in a spreadsheet or database | Appoint an owner and keep it up to date | It may make sense to have all this information in one place rather than in multiple spreadsheets |
| Understand the value of your information | Consider legislative record keeping requirements, business, historical and potential re-use value | Talk to business areas – their knowledge is vital |
| Decide how long it should be kept for | Certain types of information are subject to legislative record keeping requirements | You could consider having a catch all retention period that covers most information and then longer/shorter retention periods for the rest – an 80/20 approach |
| Ensure that staff across the organisation know what information they should be keeping and where | Build this into staff training in particular induction sessions for new staff Keep promoting this – it is not a one off activity | Use materials such as desk guides, leaflets and posters and make use of the intranet |
| Decide on the trigger point for disposal | If closure of a folder is a trigger point then you need to actually close the folders in question or disposal cannot take place when required | Use simple trigger points such 'closure of folder' as they will be easier to implement |
| Where possible build disposal into your digital systems | The extent to which you can automate disposal will depend on the systems you use | When procuring digital systems always make sure that they can 'do' disposal |
| Start disposing of information | Disposal can mean ‘delete’ but it can also mean transferring information to another organisation, for example, The National Archives | Consider putting together a policy on deletion |
| Keep it up to date | Organisations and their information change so this is not a one off activity | Set up a regular process of review and disposal and appoint people to own and take this forward |