Efforts to ensure the safety of archived documents during the process of streamlining and streamlining the apparatus

BHG - In the past time, in the process of arranging and streamlining the apparatus of the political system, document and archive work (VTLT) is one of the issues that all levels and sectors are interested in and directed. On May 17, 2025, the Politburo and the Secretariat issued Conclusion No. 155 on a number of key tasks in arranging the apparatus organization. In which, it is required to focus on closely directing the management and storage of records; avoiding the risk of losing, misplacing or destroying documents... Thereby, ensuring the safety of documents in the process of streamlining the apparatus.

BHG - In the past time, in the process of arranging and streamlining the apparatus of the political system, document and archive work (VTLT) is one of the issues that all levels and sectors are interested in and directed. On May 17, 2025, the Politburo and the Secretariat issued Conclusion No. 155 on a number of key tasks in arranging the apparatus organization. In which, it is required to focus on closely directing the management and storage of records; avoiding the risk of losing, misplacing or destroying documents... Thereby, ensuring document safety during the process of streamlining the apparatus.

Talking to us, comrade Nguyen Van Phong, Acting Head of the Provincial Department of Information and Communications, said: Implementing the direction of the Central and the province on strengthening information and communications work in the process of streamlining the apparatus of the political system, the Department proactively advised the Department of Home Affairs to issue an official dispatch requesting units and localities to compile documents and the level of document processing. At the same time, advising on the work of protecting the safety of documents and databases when merging and terminating the operations of units; the Department of Home Affairs organized online conferences to guide agencies from the provincial to grassroots levels in implementing information and communications work, digitizing archived documents in the process of streamlining the apparatus.

The Department of Records and Archives is making efforts to coordinate the digitization of provincial documents.

According to statistics up to March 30 this year, Ha Giang has 455 agencies and units that have ended their operations upon completion of the merger, including departments, branches, boards, branches, centers under departments, branches, district-level agencies and units, and grassroots localities... The number of documents created during the operations of agencies and units is about 54,000 meters of paper document shelves, of which about 48,000 documents have not been edited; over 200,000 maps. With such a number of documents, it will be a big challenge in the work of document security management.

On May 15, 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued Circular No. 06 stipulating a number of articles of the Law on Archives, requiring the Department of Archives to be responsible for receiving all documents of district-level agencies and units that have ended their operations. In the coming time, after not implementing the district level (with the volume of archived documents of about 13,000m3 of documents), at the same time receiving permanent archives of provincial-level agencies, People's Councils and People's Committees at the commune level will be a huge amount of work for the province's archives work.

According to Nguyen Van Phong, Acting Head of the Provincial Department of Archives and Records Management, one of the difficulties in receiving, storing and preserving the above large volume of documents in the coming time is the issue of storage. To do this, it will be necessary to have from 5,200m2 - 5,500m2 of warehouse floor along with a storage rack system. Meanwhile, the Department's human resources are currently limited, only 18 people, having to receive a large amount of documents in a short time. From there, it can be affirmed that the difficulties are very great and to ensure the safety of document information, avoid loss and disclosure of information documents, from now until June, the Department must increase guidance to districts and communes to pack and catalog documents for handover.

In the coming time, implementing the Central's direction on digitizing undigitized documents, completed before June 30, 2025. According to regulations, digitized documents must be edited documents, while currently we have up to 48,000 meters of unedited documents, which is also a huge difficulty. It is known that the current cost to digitize documents is about 21 million VND/meter of document price. With such a large number of documents, it will take many years to digitize. From that, it can be seen that this is an extremely difficult problem for the Provincial Department of Information and Communications in advising on this work. Not only for Ha Giang, localities across the country also face difficulties in digitizing documents according to the time given by the Central.

With the current conditions of the provincial archives, after the district level ends its operations, the provincial Department of Archives can only receive archival documents from two districts, Xin Man and Dong Van. Faced with such difficulties, according to the provincial Department of Archives, under current conditions, when it is not possible to receive documents for centralized storage at the provincial warehouse, it is still necessary to store them on-site according to regulations to gradually receive them. Thereby, to ensure the safety of documents, the Department will also have to regularly send staff to check the status of documents preserved in the localities.

Historical archives are extremely important assets. With the policy of streamlining the political system apparatus, in order to be able to do well in the work of archival documents in the coming time, according to the leader of the provincial Archival Documents Department, when merging the province, we need to pay attention to organizing the model of provincial archival documents agency in a way that is suitable to practical conditions. The Department as well as each officer and employee will always strive to both advise and perform well the work of protecting archival documents, and strive to promote the digitization of documents of the province.

Article and photos: PHUNG NGUYEN

Source: https://baohagiang.vn/sap-xep-to-chuc-bo-may-tinh-gon-manh-hieu-luc-hieu-qua/202505/no-luc-dam-bao-an-toan-tai-lieu-luu-tru-trong-qua-trinh-sap-xep-tinh-gon-bo-may-a3f4660/