Happy New Year! This year is shaping up to be a very busy one here in the Office of Chief Records Officer.
Today, we will be sending to our Federal agency contacts AC 05.2012. In this memo, we are reminding Federal agencies of the reporting requirements that were contained in the Presidential Memorandum – Managing Government Records that was issued in November. Under this Memorandum, agencies had 30 days to designate a senior agency official for records management. The deadline for this designation was December 28. Possibly because the designation was to occur at the height of the holiday season, some agencies have not yet responded. Agencies should submit the name and contact information for the senior agency official via email to RM.Communications@nara.gov as requested in AC 03.2012.
A second issue that we have been asked about is the creation of a simple template to assist agencies with creating the responses required by the rest of the Memorandum. We will be posting that template here on the blog early next week. Use of this template is optional. Agencies have until March 27 to compile this portion of their response.
Please let us know by leaving a comment if you have any additional questions about the Presidential Memorandum.
Good morning Arian:
Please consider posting this Senior Agency Official (SAO) information on-line. There are several benefits to this: first, in our experience at ISOO (where we also have SAOs and Points of Contacts at agencies), we have found in our conversations with agencies such “stove piping” that many within an agency do not know who their (records managers/declassification staff/security staff/FOIA staff) main contacts are and ask us for help – having this information on-line increases the net knowledge of staff involved in any aspects of records management (to include declassification, security, field office records management, and FOIA). Second, this will also aid in both transparency and help improve public accountability – putting a name and face on a task that she/he is responsible for.
John – Thanks for the comment and information about some of the experiences at ISOO. They certainly have some relevance for the work that we are trying to accomplish here. The team has not made any decisions on publishing the list, so I will be sure to pass along your comment.