Organising Public Records to Achieve Service Delivery: The Role of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa’s Functional Subject File Plan in Government Departments

Abstract

Systems used to arrange or classify government records play a key role in a government department’s ability to conduct and manage its business information over time. In recent years, there has been growing interest within the public sector records management community in using function-based classification systems as a means to link business context, instead of classifying it into groupings reflecting ever-changing organisational structures. Function-based records classification systems are in line with the principle of levels of arrangement and description as records are organised according to hierarchical levels in order to reflect the nature of their creation. The development in South Africa with regard to records classification systems resulted in the National Archives and Records Service propagating the use of functional subject file plan by governmental bodies. Therefore, this article presents a perspective on the approach being taken by the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa in assisting government departments to classify their business information to achieve accountability and service delivery. The article sets out the background to; and the factors affecting the development of government departments’ records classification systems and the benefits thereof. It then evaluate the effectiveness of NARS functional subject file plan in meeting service delivery by government departments. In trying to arrive at the bottom of the story, a survey was conducted on existing national government departments in South Africa.