Most U.S. federal agencies have now submitted their annual Senior Agency Official for Records Management (SAORM) reports for 2020 to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). This year’s questionnaire included a new and pointed question: “Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed any policies or practices related to records management at your agency?”
These reports thus offer a much clearer picture of the direct and immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on federal agencies’ ability to shift to electronic record keeping in compliance with the NARA mandate.
So, what are the specific challenges government agencies have cited?
Impaired Records Accessibility
For example, it appears that the shift to remote work meant that agencies had to scramble to figure out how to connect workers and ensure that records could be created, accessed, and managed at all. Projects that required physical access to records often ran into problems. The Department of Energy (DOE), for example, says, “Our team’s access to the [DOE Historian’s] collection was halted.” That stoppage naturally interfered with any work that required access to that information.
As a result, multiple agencies had to revise some of their records management policies to account for handling records disposition in a teleworking environment. For example, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says, “DHS revisited and instituted new policies surrounding virtual collaboration technologies, such as Microsoft Office Teams. Since March 2020, there have been limited to no record retrieval, transfer, or destruction across DHS.”
Work Delays
The majority of SAORMs have indicated that the pandemic introduced delays into their records management projects. In addition to problems caused by reduced access to records, the closure of Federal Records Centers (FRCs) caused problems for some agencies. For instance, the Department of Defense (DOD) writes, “The closure of the Federal Records Centers’ normal business operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Indeed, almost every major agency submitting a report cited the reduced access to the FRCs as having “hindered multiple components’ ability to transfer, accession [sic], and obtain reference request records,” as the Department of Justice (DOJ) writes. DOJ goes on to add, “Notably, the U.S. Courts do not always permit electronic evidence which has caused some challenges for prosecutors when they are unable to obtain paper records stored at FRC’s. In some cases, Components have had to delay or reschedule court hearings for detained respondents because of unfulfilled emergency requests.”
Accelerating Need for Electronic Records Management
The COVID-19 pandemic does seem to have had one silver lining: it emphasized the importance of electronically accessible records and has, in some ways, “accelerated the move to electronic records,” as DOJ reports.
DOJ is not alone in that assessment. The Department of the Interior notes that its past investments in records-related digitization and automation helped it to cope with the pandemic: “Overall, the constraints were significantly mitigated because our past investments in records management automation allowed us to operate many functions remotely.”
The DOE may put this impact most clearly: “COVID-19 has had some interesting positive program impacts as well: as the DOE workforce began working from home, it has accelerated the pace of electronic records management activities and highlighted the need for prioritizing electronic recordkeeping solutions. Digital signatures became the norm across the Department as well.”
Disparate Impacts
Finally, it’s worth noting that different agencies clearly experienced different impacts. For example, the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Transportation both answered “No” to this question and indicated their records management processes remained unchanged during the pandemic. The DOD also indicated that no changes to policies or procedures were needed. As mentioned above, DOI had already made investments that lessened the impact on them.
Meanwhile, other agencies, like DOJ, clearly felt the impact much more keenly. It’s a good reminder that every agency is unique and has its own set of circumstances and needs independent of other federal departments. In turn, what works for one department might not be successful for another. Navigating these delays and other challenges requires a custom approach. For help with that, learn more about what third-party vendors can and can’t do to help meet NARA’s 2022 deadline to shift to electronic records management.
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