PRESS RELEASE

The International Records Management Trust is pleased to announce the availability of Principles and Practices in Managing Financial Records: A Reference Model and Assessment Tool. It can be downloaded from http://www.irmt.org/index2.html. Shortly it will also be available at the World Bank Information for Development (infoDEV) website at: http://www.infodev.org/ in their Library section.

Rationale

Many countries around the world are in the process of strengthening their democratic institutions. More generally, public disquiet and awareness of widespread corruption on virtually every continent, has focused attention on the need for greater financial accountability.

Public sector accountability, particularly financial accountability, is also a high priority on the bilateral and multilateral donors’ aid agenda. Donor agencies are de facto stakeholders in financial management reforms. They provide funding in the form of grants or loans for many public sector projects. However, aid agencies are only just beginning to recognise the need to strengthen records management systems as part of wider institutional capacity building and policy reforms. This is partly because, hitherto, there has not been a readily accessible reference model for development specialists and government financial managers that specifies how record keeping systems should be designed and implemented to support financial management systems and provides tools for assessing how well existing arrangements and systems are performing. This publication is designed to fill this gap.

The ‘Accounting for Accountability’ Project

The ‘Accounting for Accountability’ project has been carried out by the International Records Management Trust with funding from the World Bank Information for Development (infoDev) programme and the UK Department for International Development. This reference model forms part of the study on accountability and public sector financial records in sub-Saharan Africa, which included case studies in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Namibia. An announcement will be made as soon as these are available.

The research called attention to the deterioration of records systems that should underpin financial management and thus provide a safeguard against corruption and fraud. It placed the decline of record keeping systems in the context of the strategies adopted by donor agencies and developing countries to promote better financial management accountability, and reduce the spread of economic crimes. Increasingly, these strategies include introducing electronic systems to co-ordinate and manage government financial functions.

The Reference Model

The study also identified good practice, both internationally and locally, and strategies that are working well in developing country contexts. The results are distilled in this Reference Model. It is intended that it will be of use to the accounting and information professions, to those who are designing new systems and to those who need to improve existing systems. It is also hoped that the reference model will assist in changing attitudes in the development community by specifying good practice for managing both paper and electronic records and providing diagnostic tools to assess whether existing arrangements are adequate.

Further information

Further information may be obtained from [email protected]

Piers Cain
Director, Rights and Records Institute
International Records Management Trust
12 John Street
London WC1N 2EB

Tel: +44 (0) 207 831 4101 (switchboard)
+44 (0) 207 242 2316 (direct line)
Fax: +44 (0) 207 831 7404/6303
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.irmt.org/