A common state e-archive can save a lot of money. When the State Service Center looked at it four years ago On behalf of the government, it was concluded that only by creating an e-archive for seven pilot images – the Swedish Companies Registration Office, the Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Fortifications Agency, the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency, the Swedish Real Estate Agency and the county administrative boards in Stockholm and Västernorrland – many would be saved.
Since then, two procurements have been launched, but both have gone awry. In 2015, the first was stopped because no supplier meets the requirements for information security that were set.
And just before Christmas last year, the next procurement was stopped because only one tender met the requirements and the low price tag was far too high – several hundred million kronor.
Now the third time is valid and at the beginning of the summer, the Statens Servicecenter submitted a report to the government where they go through the new strategy for e-archives that can be developed and where it is planned and procurement during the autumn.
– In our latest procurement, we requested a full service with operating environments, administration, applications and application management, says Mattias Åsander, division manager for authority services at the State Service Center.
This time the layout looks different. The operational service must be submitted to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and only applications are procured this time.
-The reason why we want to cooperate with the Swedish Social Insurance Agency is that they have secure IT operations, that is our motive. What we have left to decide on is the application strategy – if we are to run on licensed or open source code so I know more consulting services, he says. The idea is to decide to make in early autumn and that the procurement will start soon after. The hope is that the new strategy will give a significantly lower price than the price left in the previous procurement.
– Our idea is that we will get the service in place and that the pilot authorities will be able to take part in the services in 2020.
Since archiving is about long-term perspectives, it is also important that the software can handle it.
-We are thinking at least 30-40 years, even if in the National Archives’ perspective it is about 2000-3000 years, says Mattias Åsander.
In the report that submits to the government, the Statens Servicecenter emphasizes three crucial benefits of e-archives. First, it is a prerequisite for digitized information flows. Secondly, the risk of expensive migrations decreases when different generations of IT systems are changed and the risk of information being lost decreases if information is transferred to the e-archive, which is left for long-term preservation.
And thirdly, it can also do so with the EU’s and the government’s ambitions for open data, as e-archiving increases transparently and makes it easier for citizens and businesses to find information and also create services based on the information.
Mattias Åsander also points to another benefit with a common e-archive – that the procurement does not have to be done by all individual authorities, but that feasibility studies and other things can be done once at a cost.
– Instead of a hundred tasks putting a hundred hours into each, we can put a hundred hours and time for everyone at the same time.
When the service is in place, every image opportunity has the opportunity to start archiving digitally.
– But we can help with knowledge about how to do it – if there is demand, we will offer consulting services for that, says Mattias Åsander.
Also read: The State Service Center abandons procurement again – too expensive a tender for a new e-archive
The procurement of e-archives is canceled – no player kept the measure