Public Sector Records Management and Archiving Training Course

Course Introduction

Public-sector records provide authoritative evidence of government decisions, transactions, policies, services, programmes, institutional activities, and public administration. Effective records management and archiving ensure that important information remains authentic, accessible, secure, usable, and preserved for as long as required. This course provides a practical framework for establishing professional records-management and archival systems that support accountability, institutional memory, legal compliance, operational efficiency, and transparent government.

Government institutions create records in many formats, including correspondence, reports, contracts, financial documents, personnel files, meeting records, photographs, maps, audiovisual materials, emails, databases, websites, and electronic documents. Without consistent management, records can become difficult to locate, duplicated, improperly retained, exposed to unauthorized access, or permanently lost. Participants will learn how to organize these diverse information resources using structured classification, filing, indexing, retention, appraisal, preservation, access, and disposition practices.

The programme covers the complete records lifecycle, beginning with records creation and capture and continuing through classification, active use, storage, retention, appraisal, transfer, archival preservation, access, and authorized disposal. Participants will examine practical records-management policies, file plans, classification schemes, metadata standards, retention schedules, inventories, transfer procedures, disposal documentation, and archival descriptions. The course emphasizes practical systems that can be implemented across ministries, departments, agencies, local authorities, and public institutions.

Digital transformation has created new challenges and opportunities for public-sector records management. Electronic records are increasingly generated through email, enterprise systems, digital workflows, cloud platforms, websites, social media, mobile devices, electronic signatures, and online services. Participants will explore electronic records management, digital preservation, metadata, authenticity, audit trails, migration, format sustainability, system interoperability, and secure storage while considering risks associated with obsolete technologies, fragmented repositories, cybersecurity incidents, accidental deletion, and unauthorized alteration.

Archiving is essential for preserving records that have enduring historical, legal, administrative, cultural, research, or accountability value. Participants will learn how to conduct records appraisal, identify archival value, arrange and describe archival collections, manage access, preserve physical materials, digitize selected records, and establish sustainable digital preservation programmes. The course also considers institutional memory and how archives can support research, policy development, organizational learning, public transparency, and understanding of government history.

Modern records and archival programmes increasingly use technology to improve discovery, preservation, and service delivery. Artificial intelligence, intelligent search, automated classification, optical character recognition, digital repositories, preservation platforms, metadata automation, and knowledge-management systems can improve efficiency when properly governed. Participants will examine these technologies alongside privacy, cybersecurity, authenticity, provenance, access restrictions, ethical considerations, and information-governance requirements. By the end of the programme, participants will be able to strengthen records systems, manage archives, preserve institutional knowledge, improve information retrieval, and establish sustainable public-sector records and archival practices.

Duration

5 days

Who Should Attend

• Government records officers responsible for filing, classification, indexing, storage, retrieval, retention, transfer, and disposal of public records.

• Archivists and archival officers responsible for appraisal, accessioning, arrangement, description, preservation, digitization, access, and archival services.

• Directors and heads of records, registry, archives, information management, administration, corporate services, and knowledge-management departments.

• Registry officers managing official correspondence, file movement, tracking systems, document control, registry operations, and government information repositories.

• Electronic document-management professionals supporting digital records capture, classification, workflow, metadata, repositories, access controls, and electronic filing systems.

• Information-management officers responsible for records policies, information classification, governance, retrieval, access, quality, and lifecycle management.

• ICT and digital-transformation professionals supporting electronic records platforms, digital repositories, cloud systems, interoperability, cybersecurity, and digital preservation.

• Legal, audit, compliance, governance, and risk professionals concerned with evidence, retention, accountability, disclosure, privacy, information security, and regulatory requirements.

• Administrative officers responsible for document control, office records, correspondence management, file tracking, information retrieval, and institutional documentation.

• Knowledge-management professionals supporting institutional memory, organizational learning, information sharing, lessons learned, and preservation of organizational knowledge.

• Data and information-governance professionals working with metadata, information classification, access controls, information quality, retention, and digital repositories.

• Public information and communication professionals responsible for official publications, public records, content repositories, information requests, and historical communication materials.

• Library, research, documentation, and information-service professionals supporting government information discovery, reference services, digitization, and archival access.

• Emerging public-sector leaders preparing to manage modern records systems, government archives, electronic information environments, institutional memory, and information governance.

Course Objectives

• Develop participants’ comprehensive understanding of public-sector records management and archiving and their importance to accountability, institutional memory, legal compliance, transparency, and effective administration.

• Strengthen participants’ ability to design and maintain records systems that consistently capture, classify, organize, store, retrieve, retain, preserve, and dispose of government records appropriately.

• Equip participants with practical techniques for developing file plans, classification schemes, indexing systems, metadata standards, naming conventions, records inventories, and information-retrieval structures.

• Build participants’ competence in managing electronic records created through email, databases, digital workflows, cloud platforms, websites, collaboration systems, mobile devices, and electronic government services.

• Improve participants’ ability to develop and apply retention schedules based on administrative, legal, financial, operational, regulatory, historical, research, and accountability requirements.

• Develop participants’ capacity to conduct records appraisal and determine which records require long-term retention, archival preservation, transfer, restricted access, or authorized destruction.

• Strengthen participants’ ability to preserve physical and digital archival materials while protecting authenticity, integrity, provenance, usability, accessibility, and long-term evidential value.

• Enable participants to establish records and archival governance arrangements covering ownership, access, security, privacy, retention, disposition, preservation, auditability, accountability, and professional responsibilities.

• Improve participants’ ability to use electronic document-management systems, digital repositories, intelligent search, OCR, metadata automation, AI-assisted classification, and digital-preservation technologies responsibly.

• Prepare participants to establish sustainable public-sector records and archival programmes that improve information accessibility, preserve institutional knowledge, reduce information risks, strengthen compliance, and support organizational performance.

Comprehensive Course Outline

Module 1: Foundations of Public-Sector Records Management and Archiving

• Understanding public-sector records as authoritative evidence supporting government decisions, transactions, policies, programmes, services, accountability, and institutional memory.

• Examining the relationship among records management, archives, information governance, document control, knowledge management, transparency, privacy, compliance, and organizational performance.

• Identifying common records and archival weaknesses involving missing files, duplication, poor classification, inadequate storage, weak retrieval, unauthorized access, and inappropriate disposal.

• Emerging issues involving digital government, information growth, remote work, electronic records, cloud systems, social media records, AI-generated information, cybersecurity, and long-term digital preservation.

Module 2: Records Management Policies, Standards and Governance

• Developing records-management policies that define responsibilities, authorities, classification standards, retention requirements, access controls, preservation procedures, disposal arrangements, and accountability.

• Establishing records governance structures involving records officers, archivists, departmental coordinators, ICT teams, legal officers, information managers, system owners, and senior management.

• Developing operating procedures for records creation, capture, registration, filing, movement, retrieval, storage, retention, transfer, appraisal, access, and disposition.

• Emerging governance challenges involving cloud records, distributed information ownership, remote administration, automated records creation, cross-agency information sharing, and changing digital requirements.

Module 3: Records Classification, Filing and Indexing Systems

• Designing functional classification schemes that organize records according to government functions, activities, transactions, programmes, projects, institutional responsibilities, and operational requirements.

• Developing file plans, indexing methods, naming conventions, document identifiers, cross-references, version controls, metadata structures, and tracking systems that improve consistency.

• Applying practical methods for opening, closing, transferring, retrieving, tracking, reviewing, and maintaining files throughout their active administrative life.

• Emerging approaches involving automated classification, AI-assisted indexing, intelligent filing, semantic tagging, machine-readable metadata, automated records capture, and smart information organization.

Module 4: Electronic Records and Digital Document Management

• Managing electronic records generated through email, office applications, databases, workflow platforms, websites, mobile devices, collaboration systems, electronic signatures, and digital service platforms.

• Establishing controls for electronic records capture, version management, metadata, access permissions, audit trails, approval, sharing, retention, retrieval, backup, and disposition.

• Protecting the authenticity, reliability, integrity, usability, provenance, evidential value, and chain of custody of electronic records throughout their lifecycle.

• Emerging technologies involving AI-powered document management, intelligent search, automated metadata, OCR, workflow automation, cloud repositories, electronic signatures, and machine-assisted records capture.

Module 5: Records Retention, Appraisal and Disposition

• Understanding records retention as a structured process for determining how long records should remain available based on legal, administrative, financial, operational, historical, and accountability requirements.

• Developing retention schedules that specify retention periods, responsible authorities, disposal actions, review points, archival transfer requirements, and exceptions for records requiring extended preservation.

• Applying appraisal techniques to distinguish temporary records from those with enduring administrative, legal, historical, cultural, research, evidential, or institutional value.

• Emerging lifecycle issues involving born-digital records, automated retention, cloud storage, social-media records, AI-generated content, system migrations, data minimization, and defensible digital disposition.

Module 6: Archival Appraisal, Accessioning and Arrangement

• Applying archival appraisal principles to identify records of enduring value and determine appropriate transfer, accessioning, arrangement, description, preservation, access, and long-term management requirements.

• Developing accessioning procedures covering transfer documentation, provenance, custody, condition assessment, inventory, accession registers, location control, restrictions, and responsible custody.

• Arranging archival collections according to provenance, original order, functional relationships, series structures, descriptive hierarchies, and established archival principles.

• Emerging archival approaches involving automated appraisal support, AI-assisted description, digital accessioning, archival data standards, machine-readable finding aids, and intelligent collection discovery.

Module 7: Physical and Digital Preservation

• Establishing preservation practices for paper files, photographs, maps, audiovisual materials, bound volumes, electronic documents, databases, websites, and other government information formats.

• Managing environmental conditions, storage facilities, conservation requirements, handling procedures, disaster preparedness, backups, redundancy, media management, and preservation monitoring.

• Developing digital-preservation strategies addressing file-format sustainability, migration, emulation, preservation metadata, authenticity, integrity, storage redundancy, and technological obsolescence.

• Emerging preservation technologies involving trusted digital repositories, automated format identification, AI-assisted preservation monitoring, cloud preservation, distributed storage, preservation metadata automation, and advanced archival platforms.

Module 8: Access, Retrieval, Reference and Public Information Services

• Designing records and archival retrieval systems that enable authorized users to locate complete, reliable, relevant, and appropriately accessible information efficiently.

• Establishing procedures for internal records requests, archival reference services, public information access, copying, digitization, viewing restrictions, permissions, confidentiality, and controlled release.

• Applying search tools, indexes, metadata, finding aids, file tracking, repository structures, access registers, user permissions, and service standards to improve information discovery.

• Emerging technologies involving AI-powered archival search, natural-language retrieval, semantic search, intelligent information assistants, automated summarization, conversational repositories, and digital reference services.

Module 9: Records Security, Compliance and Risk Management

• Identifying records-management risks involving loss, theft, unauthorized access, alteration, destruction, privacy breaches, cyber incidents, poor storage, accidental deletion, and inappropriate disclosure.

• Establishing information-security controls involving classification, access permissions, physical security, audit trails, secure storage, backups, incident response, disaster recovery, and business-continuity procedures.

• Conducting records audits, compliance assessments, inventories, risk assessments, file surveys, system reviews, security checks, and corrective-action programmes to improve records and archival performance.

• Emerging risks involving ransomware, insider threats, deepfakes, synthetic records, cloud vulnerabilities, AI systems, cyberattacks, automated access decisions, and increasingly complex information-security environments.

Module 10: Strategic Records and Archival Management for Future Government

• Developing integrated records and archival systems connecting records creation, classification, electronic management, retention, appraisal, preservation, access, security, governance, institutional memory, and continuous improvement.

• Establishing records and archival improvement roadmaps with priorities, responsibilities, resources, technology requirements, implementation milestones, performance indicators, and review mechanisms.

• Strengthening professional capability through staff training, records-awareness programmes, archival standards, leadership support, information-governance committees, technology governance, and institutional learning.

• Future trends involving AI-enabled archival discovery, intelligent records administration, automated lifecycle management, digital institutional memory, predictive information governance, autonomous classification, advanced knowledge systems, and integrated public-sector information ecosystems.

Training Approach

This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.

Tailor-Made Course

This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com Tel: +254 721 331 808

Training Venue 

The training will be held at our Upskill Training Centre. We also offer training for a group (at a discount of 10% to 50%) at requested location all over the world. The Onsite course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, buffet lunch, airport transfers, Upskill gift package, and guided tour.

Visa application, travel expenses, dinners, accommodation, insurance, and other personal expenses are catered by the participant

Certification

Participants will be issued with Upskill certificate upon completion of this course.

Airport Pickup and Accommodation

Airport pickup and accommodation is arranged upon request. For booking contact our Training Coordinator through Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com, +254 721 331 808

Terms of Payment:

Unless otherwise agreed between the two parties’ payment of the course fee should be done 3 working days before commencement of the training so as to enable us to prepare better.