“The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 2019 Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies: Transition to Electronic Records prompted agencies to move to a ‘paperless government’ as the next step in their modernization journeys.
Government faces multiple challenges with paper records, such as burdens on the workforce and high costs to manually create, use and store non-electronic information. Citizens and taxpayers also face difficulties with requirements to submit documents in person or by mail, as opposed to online portals. The switch to electronic records can improve data discovery and storage, mission delivery, and customer service…”
“NARA helps with various digitization efforts. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been collaborating with NARA’s National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to ensure essential information is digitized quickly and shared with adjudicators.
‘We’ve offered [the centralized mail portal] to NPRC, and we are scanning all of their inbound records so that the publicly stated inventory of 500,000 of those requests are being scanned in,’ Veterans Benefits Administration Assistant Deputy Secretary Ken Smith said in an interview with GovernmentCIO Media & Research. ‘That will allow them not only to assign that workout and ensure that we’re not answering requests more than one time, but also keep track of what they’ve got and allow them to answer any other requests that they already have that are digitized.’…”
“To guide agencies through the implementation process, the Memorandum provided yearly targets to begin the transition to a fully electronic government. As the new year quickly approaches, here’s what OMB and NARA expect to see by Dec. 31, 2022:
- Federal agencies should manage all permanent records in an electronic format and with appropriate metadata.
- Federal agencies should manage all temporary records in an electronic format or store them in commercial records storage facilities.
- NARA will not accept transfers of records in non-electronic formats and will only accept electronic records with appropriate metadata…” Read the full article here.
Source: Federal Agencies Transitioning to Electronic Records, What to Expect in 2022 – By Sarah Sybert, September 16, 2021. MeriTalk.
