Archives New Zealand has appointed Richard Hipgrave as Manager of the Public Records Act Audit Programme.
Richard Hipgrave has more than 25 years experience as an information management professional and has led a number of audits and investigative reviews in both the public and private sector
Under the Public Records Act 2005 (the Act), Archives New Zealand is required to carry out independent audits of recordkeeping in state sector agencies. Around 200 public offices will be audited across a period of five years (about 40 per year). These will begin next year.
Richard Hipgrave says, “the purpose of the audits is to ensure that recordkeeping across government supports accountability and good business practice.”
He will lead a small team, to include two senior audit advisors and an audit programme coordinator.
“The programme gets underway in February 2010. We will visit the first 40 audit clients, take them through the audit process, discuss the expected outcomes, and identify any concerns they may have,” Richard Hipgrave says.
“After the initial visit clients will use a self-assessment audit tool to evaluate their recordkeeping capability. The audit team will review these self-assessments to identify risk areas and follow-up with them as appropriate.
Our main aim is to ensure government agencies create, maintain, and dispose of records in accordance with the Act.
Good recordkeeping is simply good business practice, and is an essential part of efficient government. The Public Records Act audits are the way of ensuring public offices are held accountable to these objectives.”
Richard Hipgrave emigrated from the United Kingdom to New Zealand in 1981. Between 1981 and 1989 he lectured in information management at Victoria University in Wellington. For a number of years he ran workshops for the Henley MBA programme on Managing Information and The Strategic Management of Information Systems.
He has published several articles on information management and two books: Computer Terms and Acronyms: A Dictionary and the Fantastic 1960s Trivia Book.