The Smith Family 

The Smith Family, founded in 1922, is a national, independent children's charity helping disadvantaged Australians to access and get the most out of their education. The organisation operates learning support and mentoring programs across 91 communities and is committed to supporting and providing positive education outcomes for disadvantaged Australians. The organisation employs nearly 900 staff across Australia to carry out delivery of its services and programs.

Context

Given the role of the organisation, and it’s work with children and other vulnerable persons, the effective, accountable and compliant creation, capture and management of records is critical in supporting transparent and child-safe services.

The Smith Family engaged RKI on two separate occasions to develop key governing documents to support uplift of records and information management practices across the organisation. The first tranche of work completed for The Smith Family involved the development of a retention and disposal schedule to support authorised and accountable disposal of the organisation’s records, in line with broader records retention requirements. This involved consultation with business stakeholders from across the organisation to understand existing records management practices to support appropriate description of organisational records and understand business requirements for records retention.

In the second tranche of work undertaken, RKI worked with The Smith Family to develop a broader Implementation Strategy & Roadmap, accompanied by a Change Management Strategy, to support implementation and rollout of changes in records and information management practices to address compliance gaps and bring into line with best practice. This roadmap considered existing gaps in records creation, capture and management, and transitioning use of business systems to support records capture (e.g., implementation of SharePoint Online to replace network drive capabilities and support broader access to records across different geographical locations).

Project Objectives were:

• Establish clear guidance and rules for disposal of organisational records.
• Identify records and information management improvement activities.
• Identify change management support required to facilitate rollout of records and information management improvements.

Our Role

  • Liaise with business stakeholders to understand existing records and information management practices, system use, and records retention requirements.
  • Develop a records retention and disposal schedule.
  • Develop a records and information management implementation strategy and roadmap to facilitate improvements in practice.

Client Outcomes

  • Ability to undertake sentencing and disposal of records, reducing physical and digital storage costs.
  • Clear roadmap for records and information management improvement activities, including understanding of implementation requirements.
  • Clear change management strategy for records and information management improvements to support staff and volunteer adoption of change.
  • Plan for implementation of effective, accountable and compliant records and information management practices

How can we help you?

Interested in our services? We’d love to chat with you about your specific requirements and how we can help more your business forward. As Australia’s trusted partner in secure, compliant, and efficient data management and records management, we provide unparalleled accountability through information governance that enhances operational efficiencies while reducing business risks. Reach out to us today and we’ll arrange a call as soon as possible. 

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