Appraising records of the expenditure management function: An exercise in functional analysis

Archivaria

Volumn 43, Issue , 1996, Pages 129-142

  Suderman, Jim ^a  

^a Archives of Ontario ^*  (Canada)

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EID: 84880407727     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. For some published sources of information on functional analysis, readers may wish to consult references cited by F. Gerald Ham in Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts (SAA Fundamentals Series) (Chicago, 1993), especially in the final chapter: "New Directions in Selection and Appraisal: Broader Contexts, Better Tools, " pp. 95-102. See also Richard Brown's "Macro-Appraisal Theory and the Context of the Public Records Creator, "Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995), pp. 121-72.
2. Ontario, Telephone Directory: FalWinter 1996-1997, pp. 370-71.
3. See Monica Scott and Flavia Fonseca on the difficulty of trying to appraise records by evidential and information value in the dynamic environment of the modem organization in their paper "Methodology for Functional Appraisal of Records and Creation of a Functional Thesaurus, " presented at the 5th International Study Conference on Classification Research, Toronto, 24-28 June 1991.
4. This project was undertaken by the author and Tom Belton. We were assisted by notes made by our predecessors at the Archives, but especially by those left behind by Bob Tapscott. For our diplomatic methodology, we relied on Luciana Duranti's article in six parts, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, "Archivaria 28-33 and Janet Turner's "Experimenting with New Tools: Special Diplomatics and the Study of Authority in the United Church of Canada, " Archivaria 30 (Summer 1990), pp. 91-103.
5. Helen Samuels, Varsity Letters. Documenting Modem Colleges and Universities (Metuchen, 1992), p. 6.
6. However, see Richard Rose, Ministers and Ministries. A Functional Analysis (New York, 1987). Rose's study may take too broad a perspective, however. He identifies three different but equally essential functions of ministers and ministries: maintaining continuity of organization while permitting adaptation.
7. The Government of Ontario's Manual ofAdministration was in use from approximately 1962 until 1973, when it was superseded by the Directives and Guidelines, still in use today. Ontario's Principles and Standards of Management (OPSM) series consists of a number of booklets published as a result of the Management Standards Project begun in 1980. It translated the government's management philosophy into a common management language and indicated established standards for the quality of management.
8. The budget process is the term used by both Mark McElwain, "Ontario's Budgetary Processes, " in Graham White, ed., The Government and Politics of Ontario, 4th ed. (1990), p. 364, and George G. Bell and Andrew D. Pascoe in The Ontario Government. Structure and Functions (Toronto, 1988), p. 33.
9. OPSM, Ontario's Expenditure Management Process (part of the OPSM series), p. 22.
10. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
11. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, "Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989), p. 17. Experiments did support, in my opinion, the uses of "special diplomatics" described by Duranti (p. 9). It was interesting to learn that in a function dominated by forms like expenditure management, diplomatic analysis, while still time-consuming, proved less of a gargantuan task than at first expected.
12. Government of Ontario, Directives and Guide1ine. s 1. Program Management, 1-1 Expenditure Management (1992), pp. 3-4.
13. The Policy and Priorities Board, a legislated committee of Cabinet, occasionally referred to as the inner Cabinet, is chaired by the Premier and is normally composed of senior ministers in their respective policy fields. Technically, all decisions of any Board of Cabinet (Policy and Priorities or Management) require the approval of Cabinet. In practice, the influence of the members of these Boards is normally such that Cabinet approval is routine.
14. Approval is, of course, captured in the minutes of the relevant Board or meeting of cabinet. Certified copies of cabinet minutes have occasionally been used as thqdocument communicating the approved allocation to the ministry.
15. "Records are recorded transactions. " See the discussion on records and documents in Duranti, "Dplomatics: (Part II), " Archivaria 29 (Winter 1989-90), pp. 12-13.
16. See Richard Brown's discussion on "Offices of Primary Interest" in "Macro-Appraisal Theory and the Context of the Public Records Creator, " 145ff., and also Luciana Duranti's discussion of function and competence in her "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Pan III), " Archivaria 30 (Summer 1990), p. 19, n. lO.
17. F.F. Schindeler, Responsible Government in Ontario (Toronto, 1969), p. 240.
18. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
19. See the list in Maynard J. Brichford's Archives & Manuscripts: Appraisal and Accessioning, pp. 22-23. While summary documents like budgets and annual audit reports are categorized as "Usually Valuable, " specialist documents like account books, accounting statements, and budget work papers are categorized as "Often Without Value. "
20. See for example, the duties and functions of the Minister of Health, described in Ministry of Health Act, RSO 1990, c.M.26(6).
21. The term "authoritatively" is used here in the sense that it is Management Board Secretariat's responsibility and within its competence to manage expenditure. Participation by other agencies is purely on the strength of MBS's delegation of its authority.
22. Submissions to Cabinet are normally made over the signature of the submitting Minister, a member of the supreme executive body, and are, purportedly, the embodiment of the will of the people.
23. Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay, eds., Yes Minister. The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by the Rt. Hon. James Hacker, MP (London, 1981), pp. 110-1 11.
24. Of course, participants in such discussions may have recorded the events in their capacity as private individuals, but no "official" government records are created that would contain this kind of detail. Depending on the viewpoint an archivist takes, however, records of such "discussions" may be deemed of little or no value.
25. Members of Ontario's Legislative Assembly are so entitled, abbreviated to MPPs.
26. Graham White, The Ontario Legislature. A Political Analysis (Toronto, 1989). p. 145.
27. Of course, in a minority government situation, those executive decisions can be overturned in a fairly decisive fashion, but that too would have been considered in the decisions reached by the executive before printing the records.
28. See "Series (archival), " in Rules forArchiva1 Description "Glossary".
29. The topic of functional endurance through times of administrative or structural change is too large to explore here. But if my statement is true, then functional analysis will eventually have to include a means to study functional change over time, just as analysis of administration practice has studied administrative change over time.
30. Certainly Ontario's Treasurer has released financial statements, and provincial estimates have been printed and public accounts recorded since 1868.
31. The creation of a new Board of Cabinet, the Treasury Board, occurred following passage of the Treasury BoardAct in 1991 (see SO 1991, c. 14). This "back to the future" legislation recreated a similar body, also named the Treasury Board, which existed from 1886 until 1971, when Management Board came into existence. The new legislation was accompanied by the simultaneous transfer of the relevant administrative offices from Management Board to the Treasurer. In 1995, the Chair of Management Board was given responsibility for the Treasury Board Act and the relevant offices returned to Management Board Secretariat from the Treasurer.
32. This latter approach for analyzing functions currently predominates at the Archives of Ontario.
33. A case where the office of creation would capture records of many functions and activities, not all of which might be deemed significant if examined individually.