8/8/2019 A Business Classification Scheme as a tool for change
at the Brotherhood of St Laurence
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A Business Classification Scheme as a tool for change at the
Brotherhood of St Laurence
Nonprofit organisation the Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL)
entered uncharted waters when its new
and first ever Records Manager this year took it down the road
of a Business Classification Scheme
(BCS), starting with the DIRKS methodology. This article
chronicles the progress of the project to date, as
BSL strives to balance its service needs with its records
management priorities, and as the Brotherhood
discovered some unexpected project outcomes.
BY LEISA GIBBONS
The Brotherhood of St Laurence was founded by Father Gerard
Kennedy Tucker as a religious order of
the Anglican Church on the 8th December 1930, in a parish church
in Adamstown, Newcastle. In 1933,
the Brotherhood moved to Melbourne, eventually establishing its
headquarters in the inner city suburb
of Fitzroy, where it currently still operates. The BSL vision is
to work towards, An Australia free of
poverty.
The organisation is incorporated under the Brotherhood of St
Laurence (Incorporation) Act 1971 of the
Victorian Parliament, which sets out a constitution for it.
Current services provided by the Brotherhood
include: job training and placement programmes; care for the
elderly and people with disabilities; early
childhood development programmes; and support services for newly
arrived refugees and migrants.
These services are delivered over a large physical area, from
Craigieburn in Melbournes north, through
inner Melbourne and down to Frankston on the Mornington
Peninsula. Over the last 10 to 15 years, the
BSL has grown rapidly and currently administers multiple sites
with a current workforce of over 600employees and 1200 volunteers.
With rapid growth came increased professionalisation, and to this
end
the organisation has highlighted the strategic value of
knowledge generation and retention.
In May 2008 the BSL appointed a Knowledge Manager, who sits in
the Research and Policy division and
manages the BSL Information Centre, which includes the library
and, since March 2009, the very first BSL
Records Manager. The primary objective of the new appointment
was the establishment of an
organisation-wide records management function which would rid
the BSL of its heavy burden of paper
records.
It was agreed that creation and implementation of a BSL
Retention & Disposal Schedule was top priority.
As a result, a DIRKS project was initiated and ran from mid
April to the end of July, 2009, with the aim of
creating a Business Classification Scheme (BSC) to inform the
construction of a Retention & Disposal
Schedule. DIRKS steps A, B, C and E were undertaken to collect
relevant data from historical
documentary sources, and from surveys and interviews with
current staff.
The investigation into the nature and culture of the BSL found
that it is an organisation where
innovation is combined with a passion for client service. At any
one time there are many ideas in
8/8/2019 A Business Classification Scheme as a tool for change
at the Brotherhood of St Laurence
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development, and in implementation at various stages, as well as
those that are in the process of
becoming part of the organisational memory. The current
organisational structure includes governance
in the form of the Board of Directors and charter and life
members, as well as board-appointed
committees to oversee various operational areas. In addition,
there are eight service activities which are
generally called divisions. (See Fig. 1)
Investigation on the client-focused business areas funded
directly by external entities, such as those
found in Community Services, Social Enterprises and Research
& Policy, revealed that the range of
business activities, as well as the relationships developed and
business requirements are very diverse.
Stakeholders in programmes include various federal and state
government agencies, as well as local
government and private enterprise. It was also found that the
nature of constant tendering for
Government or other programme funding contributed to the
reasonably constant rollover of
programmes and projects.
Information collected from the surveys of relevant staff also
revealed a heavy work practice in the
establishment and maintenance of relations with people external
to the organisation, supporting the
analysis that external relationships influence business
activities. The five top activities performed by
employees were: reports (90%), information requests (90%),
procedures (86.7%), external relationships
(83.3%) and meetings (80%). Furthermore, a majority of
individual job activities involve: support,
organisation, management, sourcing and strategy. Historically,
the organisation has always been active
in generating new ideas and advocating empowerment and
transformation. An investigation into
historical activities concluded that most functions of the
organisation were established within the first
20 years of it existence and have remained consistent over time.
(See Fig. 2)
The investigation into types of records being created and
managed revealed, significantly, that the two
primary types of records created at the Brotherhood are client
files and correspondence. However,
there are also considerable recordkeeping processes around audit
and compliance, as well as project
work, strategy, agreements, research and evaluation. Overall,
the DIRKS analysis provided evidence that
individual work units are heavily influenced by relationships
with external authorities which contributes
to perceptions of independence and isolation. Reasons for this
come from the numerous funding
providers structuring service delivery models, which in effect
promote autonomous governance and
expertise.
Finally, this analysis also revealed the significance that
advocacy and strategy has on the Brotherhood
and that advocacy activities are found within the current
practices of Communications & Development,
Community Services, Research and Policy, as well as in
Governance, including the vision of the
organisation. The identity of the organisation is strongly tied
to its history of advocacy, and much
emphasis is placed on finding innovative services to those
clients most in need.
The primary challenge in creating the BSC was the long history
of interchanging the words programme,
service and project to mean very similar activities.
Clarification of these terms in respect of financial
support has meant that service is often a conceptual collection
of activities. For example, Family
Services. Project is now defined as an activity that contributes
to the development of programmes.
