JARD Urges MDAs to Be a Part of the Rim Programme

The Jamaica Archives and Records Management Department (JARD) is encouraging ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that are not yet part of the Records and Information Management (RIM) programme to get on board.

This call comes as JARD celebrates RIM Month in April, under the theme ‘Managing Compliance in a Hybrid Workplace: Empowering Employees through Effective Records and Information Management’.

The programme, born out of the 2018 Cabinet-approved records and information management policy, is set to standardise practices across all MDAs. It also seeks to strengthen the capacity of the public service to appropriately store, secure, preserve, access and share official Government of Jamaica (GOJ) records.

Senior Archivist at JARD, Alecia Litchmore, told JIS News that once a ministry, department or agency expresses an interest to be a part of the programme, JARD conducts the necessary checks to ensure readiness.

“We have to look at the readiness of the institution on the programme. So, for example, what is the physical infrastructure in that organisation; do you have a RIM Manager, and do you have a team for the implementation,” said Mrs. Litchmore.

She noted that if an MDA does not have the required resources in place, it is asked to meet the necessary conditions before it can be onboarded to the programme.

With more than 279 MDAs across the public sector, not all can be accommodated at once. However, JARD is committed to working with institutions to build a more resilient and compliant public service through proper information governance.

Currently, 67 MDAs have commenced implementation of the RIM programme, with 13 off-boarded to initiate electronic records management systems in their entities.

The RIM programme is a component of the integrated information and communications technology ethos of the Public Sector Transformation and Modernisation Programme (PSTMP), which aims to establish an efficient and effective public sector to drive service delivery and ease of doing business.