Proactivity postponed? ‘capturing’ records created in the context of e-government – a literary warrant analysis of the plans for a national e-archive service in Sweden

Abstract

Proactive records management is often described as a prerequisite for a well-functioning public administration that is efficient, legally secure and democratic. In the context of e-government, official information is seen as a valuable asset, which is why technical solutions are developed to improve accessibility and reusability. Yet how to ‘capture’ and preserve the information is still unclear, and adaptations of routines which have originated in a paper based administration to practices suitable for managing digital records are often lacking. This risks impeding on the work of public agencies, their services toward citizens, and the goals of e-government. This paper uses current plans for developing a national e-archive service in Sweden as a case, applying literary warrant and the records continuum model to discuss how archives management can support the goals of e-government and facilitate proactivity. A special focus is placed on ‘capture’ as a vital part of holistic recordkeeping. The result shows that despite regulations and ambitions supporting proactivity, ‘capture’ is not emphasized as a necessity for using, sharing and preserving official information. This could create archives that are incomplete, and risk contributing to a decline in governmental transparency and openness.