Records management policies must be defined and documented and the objective of the policy must be the creation and management of authentic, reliable and usable records.  The policy must be adopted and endorsed by the highest level and communicated to everybody in the organisation.  It should be part of the induction programme for new staff joining the organisation and should be available for staff to read at all times e.g. on the intranet or in the staff handbook.  Once a policy has been set up, it must be reviewed regularly to ensure that it is still up to date.

Records management responsibilities and authorities should be defined and assigned, and communicated throughout the organisation so that where a specific need to create and capture records is identified, it should be clear who is responsible for taking the necessary action.   These responsibilities should be assigned to all employees of the organisation, including records managers, allied information professionals, executives, business unit managers, systems administrators and others who create records as part of their work, and should be reflected in job descriptions and similar statements.  Specific leadership responsibility and accountability for records management should be assigned to a person with appropriate authority within the organisation.  Designations of the responsible individuals may be assigned by law e.g. King III.