Reviewing the Risk Assessment

Reviewing the Risk Assessment

It is also important, when determining risks and their effects, to remember that a record that is important and valuable today may be less valuable tomorrow or in five years. Some records have less ongoing value than others. The steps taken to protect records should focus on those materials of critical importance – the vital records – so that resources are not misspent on records of lesser value.

Because the value of records changes over time, any risk assessment should be updated regularly, ideally yearly, or any time major changes have occurred, and it should be linked directly to the organisation’s retention and disposition schedule, which identifies the agency’s records and their scheduled life span in the institution.

For more information on scheduling, see Organising and Controlling Current Records and Building Appraisal Systems.

Activity 5

Identify three occasions when you should review or redo your institution’s risk assessment and impact analysis.

One way to review the threats to the organisation’s records and information on a regular basis is to conduct ongoing security and safety checks. The following one page form can be adapted for use; it will help you identify and document any issues that should be addressed.

Ongoing safety checks can help the organisation identify risks.

Remember too, these inspections should be conducted frequently, and they should be done at various times. For example, it is important to inspect areas at night and on weekends or holidays, not just during office hours. The situation in the area can be very different when staff are not in the building, and conditions may be more hazardous at night or when the building is not as busy.

Using the form provided below, conduct two safety checks, one in each of two areas of your organisation where records or archives are kept or used. For example, you could assess the archival repository, and you could assess the records centre. Or you could examine two offices in the organisation, each with its own current records registry or storage area.

What three things could be done to improve safety and security in each area? How might you adapt the form to suit your own institution’s needs?

Security and Safety Report Form

Reproduced with permission from Ann Pederson.