Historic Environment Scotland transforms its physical records management to improve GDPR compliance

An urgent need for a compliance solution

As a public organization based in Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) needed a records/data management solution to ensure it could comply with the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011, along with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, its existing solution led to poor visibility across the business. A review found 500,000 of its files were duplicates, and 11,500 electronic files contained no data at all, with many paper files dating back to the 90’s having had no management action taken on them for decades.  

The team determined a commitment to modern technology was necessary and made plans to implement Microsoft 365 and Microsoft SharePoint. But the team knew this plan would only work if they also introduced a corresponding proactive approach to information management, rather than a simple lift and shift of existing data from shared drives.

“Getting the approval to do the SharePoint project was seen as a massive milestone and a shift in the organization in terms of how it was going to treat its corporate data,” said Ryan Kerr, Head of Information Governance at Historic Environment Scotland.

Physical records management

HES had a large volume of poorly managed and poorly tracked physical records in its previous system. There was a lack of logging and auditing capabilities for destroyed physical records, which was a requirement under the PRSA. The organization needed an automated solution to overcome any deficiencies in records management knowledge and culture.

Electronic records management

When it came to electronic records, the team was also advised that SharePoint’s out-of-the-box configuration would not allow for compliance with PRSA, particularly with regard to logging and disposal/destruction auditing. Transitioning from shared drives to SharePoint proved to be a laborious and painful process for the business, as they had to manually review and categorize thousands of files. A complementary solution was needed.

RecordPoint offers a solution

After evaluating multiple systems, HES leadership chose RecordPoint, thanks to its logging and auditing capabilities, as well as its ability to enable the organization to meet PRSA requirements.

While the organization has yet to fully roll out the platform across its electronic records, the impact it’s made in managing physical records has been immediately apparent—and significant.

A transformation in managing physical records

Since adopting RecordPoint, the organization has seen a complete revamp of how it manages physical records. The process of moving to RecordPoint has meant that the team has improved its data quality, as every single physical file has been reviewed and had its metadata updated. This means the team now has confidence in its data, making management much easier.

“It's transformed how we manage our physical records and acted as a catalyst for that improvement,” Kerr said.

“We can manage those records night and day more effectively than we could. And the way we've done it meant that we were able to destroy large quantities of files which were no longer of business value prior to putting them onto RecordPoint.”

What’s next?

Now that RecordPoint has transformed how HES manages physical records, the organization’s leadership is planning for how best to use RecordPoint to more effectively manage and utilize their electronic information and data and are looking forward to getting the plan signed off and moving to implementation.

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