Managing our information assets

State Records Commission Standards and ISO 15489:2016 Records Management continue to guide best practice recordkeeping. This is supported by ISO16175:2011 Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments. Our Recordkeeping Plan 2022, approved by the State Records Commission, provides guidance on the changing needs of our workforce and how we do business.

Our records management processes have been re-certified to ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management and our bulk-scanning and document processing application is currently at the latest version, Kofax TA 7.9. Our records management application is soon to be upgraded to TRIM OpenText Content Manager CM 23.4.1 Hotfix 3 with 2,855 licensed users.

Our service delivery

Information assets captured and used by our people, include almost 60,000 hardcopy files onsite in various compactus and in regions, 1,000 boxes onsite, and 20,000 boxes offsite in external storage. 176,000 virtual files containing 19.1 million digital items and 2.6 million electronic documents are held in a 42 terabyte TRIM database.

Library information assets include 15,950 standards, 24 research databases, and 39,000 books/reports. Of the books and reports, 22,000 are digital and include a subscription to Springer eBooks. We further have 470 videos, 8500 photo negatives, 250 photos/albums, and 540 slide transparencies. Item records are held in an 8 terabyte TextWorks Library Database linked to historical information and records held within the TRIM database.

A dedicated Main Roads 'Working from Home' SharePoint website provides our people with information to assist in saving and searching for documents using Microsoft 365 (M365) and the TRIM Web Client.

Our Digital Roadmap has given high priority to our upcoming TRIM upgrade to an Open Text Content Manager 23.4.1 and a near future application integration between TRIM (CM 23.4.1), MS Teams, and M365 SharePoint Online with improved governance processes, collaboration standards, technology, and training. We have undertaken a comprehensive TRIM CM 9.4 System Health Check for this TRIM upgrade.

Our Information Classification Policy has been implemented across the agency, with Purview configured to label information with protective markings to comply with Western Australia's State Government policy.

Information Services is also involved in the 100 Years Anniversary of Main Roads providing records from photo, film, negative, and VHS Video collections.

All correspondence received at our head office is processed through Kofax TA7 with a total of 72,764 items processed this year for storage to TRIM, as depicted in the table below. Kofax TA7 provides bulk scanning and document processing using machine learning to automate the capture and storage of information to TRIM for further processing.

Scanned ‘day boxed’ hardcopy records continue to be legally destroyed in accordance with the General Disposal Authority for Source Records.

In addition to our core records activities, best practice recordkeeping and information management were utilised to complete the following projects and initiatives:

• Finalised, and obtained approval from the State Records Office (SRO) for the updated Main Roads WA Retention & Disposal Schedule
• Updated and Implemented new SRO GDA Retention & Disposal Schedule at Main Roads
• Initiated upgrade of the records management application TRIM to OpenText CM 23.4.1, and integrated 3rd party applications including updates to affected procedures and user guidelines
• Maintained our mandatory in-house Online Records Awareness training course and TRIM Essentials course
• Continued our State Archiving Strategy to remove hardcopy legacy holdings from each of the Regions
• Processed 127 boxes from Derby, Broome, and Kununurra including drawings which are now at 'Project Ready Status'
• Processed 68 boxes from Bunbury which are now at 'Project Ready Status'
• Processed 595 boxes from Albany which are now at 'Project Ready Status'
• Ongoing processing Kalgoorlie Archiving Project (840 boxes) including drawings
• Review and streamlining of information management services provided within the Don Aitken Centre

Our Record Keeping Code of Practice for the Management of Contract Records is available on our website and guides compliance with the State Records Commission Standard 6: Outsourcing. Under this Code, submission of a Contract Recordkeeping Plan is required from contract companies within 28 days for approval. Contract Recordkeeping Plan reviews are conducted by a records practitioner prior to sign off and four reviews of plans were completed this year.

Records management operations and projects are supported by our TRIM support help desk who triage customer enquiries, and perform daily audits, to protect critical records from deletion. This year 6,848 TRIM enquiries were received through various communication channels with most resolved within 24 hours. This financial year an additional 1.84 million artefacts were added to TRIM.

As part of our Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Strategy a more holistic approach to managing data and information is underway to improve its lifecycle management, data modelling and effective governance. This is a prerequisite to the success of our Digital Engineering program of work and the sharing of information across the Transport Portfolio, and other Government agencies, whilst addressing agreed focus areas in our ICT Strategy. To support this focus, an Enterprise Data Governance Committee has been established to provide governance and accountability for our data and information management environment, under whose leadership we have developed our Data Governance Framework and Operating Model. The rollout of the framework, including the policies, procedures, and training has commenced across Main Roads. Several tools have been implemented to support the framework including a Data Catalogue, Microsoft Purview, and a new data platform, which will enable self service reporting and analytics for end users.

Our training

We continue to support good recordkeeping practices through our TRIM training programs, provided by our training team. We provide long and short structured courses, as well as customised one-on-one or group sessions as required by users and business areas. Our courses are delivered either online or in-person. Where feasible and appropriate, our team travel to regional offices to deliver training.

We further support our people by maintaining user guides, training material, and webinar recordings that are available to everyone via the Main Roads intranet (iRoads). We disseminate information via email and news articles on iRoads as a means of educating people on recordkeeping responsibilities, training opportunities, and system changes. We ensure our training and TRIM support teams are easily accessible and we encouraged people working for and with Main Roads to actively seek assistance from us.

Recordkeeping Awareness and TRIM Essentials training modules were released in February 2022 and are provided through the Main Roads LMS, LearningHub as mandatory induction courses for all new starters.

Our training team have significantly increased their training output in the past year due to an additional part time resource. This has enabled introduction of a stable and consistent training program that includes regular virtual TRIM ‘n Win courses, monthly full-day workshops, and a custom course for new file creators. They have also travelled to two regional offices to deliver training and assisted with the Information Classification training delivery.

Our training team responded to 301 direct enquiries and their training sessions had a total of 2758 participants over the year. These figures include delivery of Information Classification to 720 people to assist the Information Classification Rollout Project. The following table represents the breakdown of TRIM training courses and attendees.