What is Information Governance?
Information Governance is an approach to managing information assets across an organisation to support their overall business outcomes. It involves having frameworks, policies, processes, standards, roles, controls and systems in place to meet regulatory, legal, risk and operational requirements.
Why is Information Governance important?
Information governance establishes where your information is created and managed. With a strong framework in place, information can be leveraged throughout its lifecycle, helping you to significantly improve services to your customers, make informed decisions and provide insight to future strategies.
Key aspects of Information Governance
- Information governance is an overarching framework for managing information and is the top level of an organisation’s information strategy
- Defines the processes of information and it's management throughout an organisation, supporting information-related decisions
- Establishes business requirements for the structure of information, including details such as metadata, classification, taxonomy, policies and procedures
There are regulations and laws that help define information governance within an organisation, some of these include:
- Archives Act 1983
- Archives Regulations
- Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013
National Archives Australia (NAA) have an extended list of key laws that impact the information management responsibilities of most Australian Government agencies, these can be referenced here.
