Are we all hoarders?
According to one management association (AIIM), office staff are loath to give up paper copies, despite the wide availability of scanners and document management systems. The recent survey found that 62% of important paper documents are still archived as paper. Even when documents are sent off for archive scanning, 25% are photocopied beforehand “just in case”. Less than a third of the paper originals are systematically destroyed after scanning.
AIIM’s President, John Mancini comments, “Despite the fact that the legal admissibility of scanned paper documents has been established for nearly 20 years and is nailed down in legislation and standards around the world, there is still this suspicion among users that they may need to produce the original paper copy at some stage,” continued Mancini. “The fact that searching for - and finding - a paper copy is umpteen times more difficult than finding an electronic one seems to have escaped them.” In the survey, 70% of the respondents agreed with the statement, “Users feel that paper records are needed for legal reasons.” Even at the organisational level, in 25% of businesses the legal admissibility of scanned documents is still seen as an issue.
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
