WIREDGOV

This blog post was written in conjunction with Iron Mountain who are on our Document Management Solutions framework (390) on Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4.

One of the key challenges customers face when transitioning between records management contracts are the unexpected costs which can be associated with moving to a new supplier.

If you haven’t started your contract with the end in mind (and this isn’t at all uncommon), you may well find that there is a significant financial road-bump awaiting you once you start looking at your options.

This is because there is a real operational effort associated with exiting a contract: records need to be physically retrieved, box and file meta-data updated on systems, checked inventory palletised and wrapped, vans loaded, consignment securely transported and unloaded - often in significant quantities. This takes time and space – something that needs to be planned around other projects and routine service delivery. 

It is of course vital that full chain of custody is maintained throughout, and you may need to access records during the exit process, so you will want the right people working on these projects which also requires time and planning to get right.

However, there are steps you can take to make a contract exit as smooth and low cost as possible. Ultimately, it’s about starting with the end in mind.

Have you digitised your regular-access records?

If so (particularly if you have chosen a supplier who meets the BS10008 legal admissibility in court standard), you can destroy your hard-copy records (unless there are good heritage reasons for not doing so, of course). That’s one less group of records to check out and move at exit stage. 

Have you destroyed everything you can?

Making sure you are on top of your inventory has both compliance and cost benefits. A streamlined inventory costs less to store and manage and gives you less to move at the end of your contract, so make sure you have a compliant retention programme in place and routinely get rid of what shouldn’t be kept. This can even include the removal of redundant pages from individual files. But to destroy, you need to know what you have which brings us on to...

Make sure you know what you’ve got!

If you don’t know what’s in some of your boxes, you are likely to be paying for unnecessary storage space, may be contravening compliance regulations, may hold information your end users would love to have access to but can’t, and will certainly be making your life more complicated and expensive at the exit point. A good supplier will have extensive experience helping organisations to improve the metadata they hold around their inventory, enabling you to get greater value from your records and improve compliance along the way.

And last but not least: talk to your supplier

A good supplier will be keen to help you manage your inventory in a proactive way with a long-term vision. Having a dialogue about where you want to get to with your records and information should be part of your ongoing account management - make sure you put it on the agenda.

ESPO’s Document Management Solutions framework (390) allows your public sector organisation to procure solutions including scanning, storage and disposal of documents, the supply of software and consultancy services.

Suppliers on this framework, including Iron Mountain, have been vetted by ESPO and can support you to find the right solution for your organisation.

If you would like further information from ESPO, please contact our team via ICT@espo.org or 0116 294 4008.

For more information from Iron Mountain, please contact their team via bidmanagementwe@ironmountain.com.