By Nation Correspondent
Posted  Sunday, January 1  2012 at  22:00

Ministries and public agencies have embarked on a journey towards paperless correspondence to increase transparency and accountability in their operations.

Public Service Minister Dalmas Otieno said the five-year plan would ensure communication within the government was completely computerised.

In line with the new move, about 560 record management officers are to be posted in registries of each ministry to transform flow of information from manual to digital.

At the same time, all past correspondence — circulars, memos or vouchers — are to be scanned and stored electronically for easier retrieval.

“The need for excellent record management practices is paramount as there is an increasing amount of information available today,” Mr Otieno said last week.

“This plan aims to modernise records management to enable the government to become more responsive to needs of citizens and deliver service more efficiently and effectively.”

Speaking in Nairobi, Mr Otieno noted that improving records management was also fundamental to the concept of democracy.

“Recorded information ensures the protection of human rights, the rule of law, fairness and equal treatment of citizens,” he said.

He noted that Kenyans expected the government to maintain reliable and accurate evidence of its decisions and actions.

“The strategy will ensure that government’s activities are documented and maintained, with officials getting the right information at the right time and at the least possible cost.”

Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura said the digitised system would enable his officers to perform their duties effectively.

“Kenya like other countries in Africa such as Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe among former British colonies, still operate a paper-based registry system,” Mr Muthaura said.

How long to scan a four drawer file cabinet?

 

Jim McCarry - A four drawer filing cabinet from a Financial Adviser’s office, using a 50 page per minute scanner, will take between 20-24 hours. This includes document preparation (removing staples, paper clips, tags etc), scanning, quality checking, indexing and exporting to removable media.

 

Truth or myth, will there be a paperless office?

Richard Atkins• I believe many offices can use less paper than they do now for meeting handouts, presentations and reading material by better using screens/projectors in meetings and possibly e-ink devices for reviewing documents.
I do not yet see a replacement for the working/notes/dairy/scrap book most office people have. Mine is very important and digitising it would be combersome and reduce my freedom of movement, unless I used some sort of super light tablet PC with freehand notation.
I really do believe that paper less is the way forward, printing paper wastes time with printing/print preview, paper toners, re-filling printers. Paper also stacks up around desks generally creating a mess and prevents enforcing clear-desk policies and general productivity when hunting for paperwork that is otherwise instantly digitally searchable. Digital documentation also has the potential for rich metadata (when I last saw it, was sent it, wrote on it etc….) which is not captured on paper.

 

Jenny Savage – My 21 year old was amazed to learn I had a file drawer with paper files.  The next generation will make the paperless office a reality. 

 

Trying to validate stakeholder’s request to re-assemble, staple, and re-clip paper docs after scanning? What do you do? How have you dealt with this?

Some of our stakeholders want the disassemled docs to be scanned and then re-assembled to look exactly like they did prior to scanning. These docs may have stapled bundles within stapled bundles within clipped bundles. Currently, our scanning company inserts separator sheets between unstapled docs and leaves the sheets in the docs after scanning. The paper is returned to our archives

Stewart Stead• This solution to this is to, as the other comments explain, categorize the documents by tagging them for ‘deconstruction / reconstruction’. We used coloured markers that protruded from the edge of the document. These mark staples, paper clips, folders, string binds etc. One person would mark for deconstruction and take the document apart, another would scan and reconstruct, in a seamless production line style.

This type of work costs, and cost more than the cost to scan a single page. It is time consuming and takes a dedicated professional person to get it right.

I scanned legal documents that were managed under chain of custody and they had to be presented in court in the ‘original format’ after the digitization for OCR and digital storage purposes.

 

Document management software charges by the number of users – It’s too expensive by the user!

Is there another option?

FileBound Document Management system is unique in it’s licensing model.  One license applies to UNLIMITED users.  That means, everyone authorized to the system can have access on day one.  Radical.  Pricing is based on the amount of storage.  Storage volumes can be controlled by off-loading to DVD’s or harddrives after a couple of years.  Love It!

 

Record Storage Systems is a FileBound partner.  Contact Jenny Savage at 704/309-4410 for more information.