Issue 7/03 – 25 June 2003
‘Throughout your career, the file grows'
In the May 28/03 issue of CFPN, we featured the
Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources – Military)-driven
project reviewing and shedding light on every aspect of the management
of CF personnel records. Headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Bertrand Tremblay,
Directorate of Military Employment Policy (DMEP) 3, the project
touches areas of administration and record keeping across DND/CF
including the organization's front-line record keepers, CF
Support Units.
By Ruthanne Urquhart
 CF
Support Unit (Ottawa) manages the paperwork on about 5 800 people,
“from the Chief of the Defence Staff to the newest Private,”
says Warrant Officer Bob Hurley, CFSU(O) IC. “From when you
first walk into the Recruitment Centre, all your enrolment documentation
and the original Terms of Service you sign, birth certificate, education
documents – we have it all. And throughout your career, the
file grows. Every time you go on a course, every time you're
posted, when you get into trouble or when you do something good
– all that documentation goes in your pers file.”
The amalgamation of the Finance and Administration
trades has added another dynamic to record keeping. Currently, DND/CF
uses the Human Resources Management System (HRMS) to electronically
manage some of those files, but paper records are still necessary.
The introduction of HRMS has increased the workload.
A leave pass, for example, used to be entered into the leave record
and put in the drawer. Now, it's entered into the leave record
and put in the drawer, and also entered into the database. But the
extra steps are good steps, WO Hurley says, because the reporting
mechanism is now a lot easier and a lot better.
CF members with 20 years' service have a pers
file anywhere from four to six centimetres thick. When a member
is loaded on a course, for example, a copy of the loading message
goes into his or her pers file. When the member completes the course,
the course report goes into the pers file, too, and the now-redundant
loading message is disposed of. Only careful ongoing vetting by
clerks can keep those paper files from doubling or tripling in size.
Guidance with regard to what can be removed from
a member's pers file and disposed of, and when and to where,
comes in accordance with the Privacy Act
and the Access to Information Act.
“For a while, we weren't getting clear
direction with regard to what we could take off, so we haven't
taken anything off for a few years,” WO Hurley says. “But
the policy has recently been clarified, so we're going to
start this fall to remove the redundant and no-longer-required papers.
“We don't handle retired personnel; we
handle only ‘live' files, so we don't have to
send files off to the National Archives.”
Currently—from July 1998 to the present—paper
files go to Directorate Military Careers and Resource Management
(DMCARM) where they are scanned into the Personnel Electronic Records
Management Information System (PERMIS) and then destroyed. PERMIS
is the Protected “B” Total Archival System wherein all
documents are stored as non-modifiable images. Paper records from
before July 1998 are held by National Archives, as are (and will
be) all retired members' pers records.
CF members can obtain informal access to their records
at their Support Units, or formal access under the Privacy
Act.
“Normally,” says Lt(N) Dan Bouchard,
CFSU(O)'s Personnel Support Officer, “CF members request
informal access to their pers file through their Chain of Command.
They can then review the file with their respective supervisor.”
Recruits are now being processed electronically under
the Prospect Applicant Electronic Records System (PAERS), a sub-system
of PERMIS. CF Recruitment Centres are using PAERS, but their electronic
records must also be on paper because the necessary software hasn't
yet made its way across the department.
Not far down the road, department-wide implementation
of PERMIS will allow Support Units and other authorized users to
scan and enter documents on-site, virtually eliminating the need
for paper records.
“We're looking forward to PERMIS,”
Lt(N) Bouchard says. “Since we are located in Ottawa, we could
be the trial unit. Once PERMIS is instituted, it will ease Resource
Management Support Clerk duties by allowing for multitasking without
leaving the computer. We won't always need hard copy files
to administer our members because the information will be readily
available on the database. It's going to be a very good thing.”
|
