The disability royal commission is more formally known as the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. It’s expected to run for three years and, during that time, is likely to request significant amounts of documentation from all organisations that service people with disabilities.

It’s important to note that a document request doesn’t necessarily denote that the royal commission is investigating a provider on suspicion of wrongdoing. The royal commission is also looking at ways to support people with disabilities to participate in the royal commission. Therefore, there could be any number of reasons why the royal commission may request documents from your organisation.

Often, requests for documents may be rapid with short response timeframes. Failing to respond fully and in a timely fashion could result in your business being subject to closer scrutiny and, potentially, raise suspicions around your work practices.

Therefore, it’s essential for any provider working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to prepare for the royal commission by ensuring their business is ready to be audited at a short notice.

This includes getting all of your documents in order and ensuring they’re easy to retrieve on request. While this may sound simple, in reality it may not be quite so straightforward. This can be because your documents are largely paper-based, or you use a variety of siloed systems to manage your business, or you simply aren’t sure exactly what documents you have and where they’re stored.

How to respond quickly to document requests

There are four steps that can help you prepare for document requests from the royal commission, as well as prepare you for any future audit requirements:

1. Digitise your documentation
   When documentation is stored as a mixture of hardcopy and electronic files, it can be cumbersome and time consuming to bring it all together. You need to eliminate the burden of paper in your organisation by digitising all of your documentation.This can be done using an intelligent information management platform such as the one Storata has created powered by M-Files. Using optical character recognition (OCR) and scanning turns paper-based documents into searchable, editable, digital versions. This has the double benefit of reducing the amount of physical storage space you need while making all of your documentation much easier to find.
2. Overlay an intelligent information management (IIM) solution
   Storata’s IIM solution is based on M-Files, so it uses metadata to discover documents based on what they’re about, not where they’re saved. Therefore, if your staff members are looking for all documents relating to an individual client, they don’t have to browse through different emails and fileshares. Instead, they can use the search functionality in M-Files to immediately find all the documents related to that client.This solution means you’ll no longer need to worry about ‘hidden’ documents or information you didn’t know you had, because the Storata solution will find it all, no matter where it’s stored. Furthermore, version control won’t be an issue due to M-Files smart classification system; you’ll always be working with the latest version of any document.
3. Apply automated workflows
   Much of the documentation you have will be subject to legal requirements around how long you keep it, how you store and protect it, and when you need to destroy it. The Storata IIM solution can set automated workflows around these processes, such as sending alerts when documents need to be destroyed.Similarly, the Storata IIM solution can help you automatically manage plans and contracts by applying automated approval processes, notifying you when plans or contracts need to be renewed, and ensuring these documents are retained for the required amount of time. You can also securely share that information with clients and other stakeholders using permissions based on who they are. This helps maintain the integrity of documents while also ensuring full disclosure.
4. Provide secure access to external parties
   To make the document sharing process faster and easier, you can provide secure access for external auditors, which can help increase the speed and accuracy of audits. Permissions-based security means only authorised people can access the information, maintaining the security and confidentiality of the documents that are made available.

When you have these four steps in place, you’ll be able to respond quickly and with minimum effort to document requests from the royal commission, the NDIA, or external auditors. This will save your staff’s time while ensuring you comply with all legislation and industry standards.

Storata partners with M-Files to provide leading edge and affordable solutions to help you respond to document requests quickly and seamlessly. To find out more, contact us today.