The NSW Department of Industry and Investment evolved from the merger of multiple government agencies, including Agriculture, Energy, Fisheries, Forestry, Mining, and State Development. Each agency brought it’s own classification scheme and retention schedule. These had to be merged into a single harmonised whole and uploaded into the department’s HP TRIM recordkeeping system. A new disposal authority (retention schedule) was also required to cover the new entity.
A further requirement was the mapping of the disposal authority to the classification scheme for loading into TRIM. This mapping would enable sentencing at the point of creation – a process whereby the record is automatically linked to a retention class based on the assigned classification.
Using a.k.a.®, terminology was collected from the former agencies then merged and harmonized into a single corporate taxonomy (business classification scheme). Obsolete terms were designated as non preferred and linked to the taxonomy of preferred terms.
Controlled subject classification was a requirement as the department had issues with search and retrieval due to mis-spellings, abbreviations, acronyms etc. Therefore the classification scheme was built to a four level hierarchy:
- Functions
- Activities
- Subject headings
- Subjects
- Subject headings
- Activities
To enable staff consultation during the development, the draft classification scheme was published from a.k.a.® directly to the intranet.
Once the classification scheme was finalized, work commenced on revising and realigning the retention schedules.
Over 500 pieces of legislation were collated in a.k.a.® and recordkeeping requirements identified. Records classes were then developed and linked to relevant legislation. The retention schedule was then submitted to the NSW regulator for approval in the form of a specially formatted report generated using a XSL template.
Once approved, the retention schedule was mapped to the classification scheme.
The final product was published to the intranet for online access, where users could see the entire structure and click through to the legislation and recordkeeping requirements.
The finalized linked taxonomy and retention schedule was published into HP TRIM.
Ongoing maintenance sees the lover levels of the scheme updated on a regular basis, and these updates are passed through to the web and to TRIM directly from a.k.a.®.