A UK registered charity governed by a board of trustees, the IRMT was created in 1989 and has worked with dozens of governments over the years to help strengthen records systems. Its work on development research and educational and consultancy services has focused on offering practical solutions to records issues in relation to international good practice as governments make the transition to working in the digital environment. Over the years, the IRMT has given particular attention to human resource, financial and court records and to the significance of digital records management for the right to information and open data.
The Trust is unique internationally in terms of the nature of its vision and mandate, its broad international experience, the breadth and length of its work across different sectors, and its consistent track record of successful project delivery. Their projects are distinguished by their long-term commitment to the people of the countries they serve, their close collaboration with local stakeholders at all levels of government, our commitment to team work, and their ability to relate international good practice to the realities of local requirements and resources.
They emphasise the importance of managing government records as a basis for protecting civil and human rights, reducing poverty, controlling corruption, strengthening democracy, promoting economic and social stability, improving services to citizens, and demonstrating accountability and transparency.
Their London office manages their portfolio of projects, supported by a consultancy team drawn from the public and private sectors and from academic institutions across the world. They work through a wide network of partnerships across development, professional and academic boundaries.
They monitor the impact of technology on the way that government records are created, used and stored, and support the transition from paper to electronic record-keeping systems. In addition to creating freely available training material, they have assisted many countries to build sustainable laws, policies, systems, facilities and procedures for the management of records and archives.
Professionally managed records provide the clearest, most durable evidence of any government’s policies, operations, decisions and activities; they are essential to protecting people’s rights and interests and holding officials accountable for their actions. The fragile nature of digital records and data means that they will not survive unless they are managed. They are vulnerable to risks including media deterioration, software changes and hardware obsolescence. They can be altered, deleted, fragmented, corrupted or lost completely, making them difficult to access, share and manage after a few years or even after a few months. They may be stored on personal drives, un-networked computers or unmanaged network drives, and different versions may be kept without adequate identification. Their meaning is lost when metadata (the data describing their context, content, structure and management) is not captured, is imprecise, or is separated from the records and data when technology changes.
