Federal Sentencing Commission To Include RM in Ethics Section

The Federal Sentencing Commission is updating their sentencing guide to include records management in the section on Effective Compliance & Ethics Program (pg 33-36). The Sentencing Guidelines are used by Federal judges in determining a sentence from drugs to hate crimes.

This is the first time I’ve seen RM included in a Federal document as being part of ethical behavior and compliance. Raises the bar a bit in how you create compliance evidence as part of your whole program. Although the legal system has viewed retention schedules as company policy, questions only arose when important records were missing (for some reason), that the court and/or attorney wanted explained. Then the process of providing evidence on program operations (policy, training, reviewing, etc) were provided, reviewed and questioned. Interestingly enough, I know of no instance where a distinction was made on employees who should, may, may not, etc. have records.

Maybe a sign of the future, the governance side of RM in our company has become part of the Global Ethics, Compliance & Privacy group. I’m sure a few other programs have an alignment or relationship with compliance groups but it could become a growing trend.

http://www.ussc.gov/2010guid/20100121_Reader_Friendly_Proposed_Amen...

http://www.ussc.gov/