The last two decades have seen a step change in the methods we use to interact with contractors. Generally speaking, the primary means of engagement is now digital. This has brought with it significant reductions in the cost of engagement, and reduced the time to commencement of work. It has also increased the volume of engagements each employee is expected to support, and the quantum of risk associated with incorrect transfers of information. In discussions with many government entities I have found a number of common areas in which expensive problems occur frequently, that I also believe can be substantially reduced by improving information governance around each engagement.
Incorrect version transmittals. In organisations that run large projects, I’ve found that transmittals are still error prone. Large transmittals (lots of documents, or large documents) generally go out as multiple emails or on physical media – paper or digital. When they do, the probability of using an incorrect document version increases substantially and has obvious consequences for the financial and completion timeline of a project.
Provision and capture of as-built documentation. As-built documentation is typically large and held in systems inaccessible outside the organisation. It almost always has changes that need to be captured in a system of record after an engagement. Content is large enough and changed exclusively digitally, so transmission needs to be via electronic medium, or post work updates become very difficult. After an engagement, capture and correct storage of updated as-built documentation is again difficult. The risks are clear, when access isn’t provided and updates aren’t captured effectively, engagements start with incorrect information that leads to variations and re-work.
Capture of compliance documentation. Compliance documentation is a fact of life for contractor engagements. Workcover, insurance, safe work method statements etc. Good contractor management dictates that this documentation should be captured and stored in an organisational system of record and preferably associated with the specific work. Breakdown in this capture process is usually only noticed when there is a project failure. It can often be explained by an over-reliance on email, and failure to follow information governance processes. Mailbox limits frequently dictate that people will archive to repositories that are typically ungoverned and which can lead to a variety of significant liability scenarios.
Proof of work. Proof of work for contractor engagements has gone electronic over the last few years, particularly where it involves small construction or physical maintenance tasks. In some scenarios, inspectors capture photos of completed work, in others, contractors provide photos to prove completion. In each scenario, the problem is the same, the photo is provided, the payment is ordered, everyone moves on to the next project, often without the proof of work being captured in a system of record. I have spoken to records managers supporting legal action who counted themselves lucky for being faced with directories of several thousand photos with descriptive names like “DSCP1101”. The reality is that photographic proof is often lost with the email archive or laptop of the employee who ordered the work.
Ultimately, each of these scenarios can lead to substantial loss, and reflects an information governance challenge that is relatively simple to address. Many of these challenges can be traced to contractors’ lack of access to information governance systems. Manual work arounds and transfers from a system of record to an ungoverned system (ie. email and paper) introduce information risk that can easily be avoided.
Good solutions to this problem start by ensuring that there is a single source of truth for engagement information, and that all staff and contractors involved have access to it. They wrap an information governance framework around the engagement processes, ensuring that when evidence of transmittal, completion, or compliance is needed, it has been captured, is available and its source is known. This is a gap I’ve often encountered within the government organisations that I deal with. Historically this gap has been caused by tool cost and the security status of cloud platforms. Recent changes to the Australian Government Protective Security Policy Framework, and Information Security Manual mean that tools like our own Objective Connect and others are now viable for use by government. If you’re having trouble controlling risks like the ones above, a tool like ours should be on your list to examine.
Karl Melrose's Blog 