New Zealand: record updates pricey.

New Zealand's public sector agencies may have to spend $140 million to improve their document management systems to meet a 2010 deadline to comply with the Public Records Act, according to an estimate by one of New Zealand's biggest document management companies.

The 2005 act requires central and local government agencies and state owned enterprises to keep records of all physical and electronic documents, including e-mails. According to the act, they can be deleted only with the approval of the government's chief archivist.

Wellington-based TechTonics forecasts that 200 organizations with 140,000 staff will need to install new document management systems to comply, "conservatively" costing $70 million in software license fees and another $70 million in implementation costs.

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According to Archives New Zealand's digital sustainability program manager, Evelyn Wareham, the government has not put a dollar figure on the likely compliance costs, but she said she believes TechTonics' figures are high.

Media reports say that only 44 percent of agencies have fifll-blown document management systems, and some of those may need upgrading.

Whatever it costs, Wareham acknowledged that compliance is a price of doing business well. "We would say having good recordkeeping is much the same as having good financial management, human resources management, and property management;' she said.

Agencies that fail to comply with the Public Records Act run the risk of prosecution. However, Wareham said Archives' response may depend on the type of non-compliance.

"If an agency was intentionally destroying records ... or intentionally not keeping records, I think the chief archivist would be looking to point that out to Parliament," she explained. "If it was working in goodwill and had a good roadmap in place, I don't know if we would give them a fail mark just because they hadn't got a system in place yet, because some changes that may be needed can take several years to implement."