Improving records management to promote transparency and prevent corruption

•Including transparency obligations into a record’s lifecycle prevents the occurrence of any corruption risk associated with the management.•Lack of specific regulations on transparency by design represents a limitation for records management role in preventing and fighting corruption.•There is a need to update legislation on archives and records management with regard to access to information, transparency and accountability. This paper pursues to show how regulation can facilitate the incorporation of transparency obligations into a record’s lifecycle (transparency by design) to prevent the occurrence of any risk of corruption associated with the management of the information created by a public administration (missing or disappearance of information, lack of evidence, modification of documents, etc.). The paper analyses the mechanisms available to Spain’s public administrations for managing these irregularities in records management though the raft of regulations and protocols that have been approved in the country. It assesses how the lack of specific regulations providing for transparency by design currently represents a limitation on the role of records management as a tool for preventing and fighting corruption. The paper shows that there is a need to guarantee proper records management, which includes transparency throughout a record’s lifecycle. It concludes that legislation assessed does not properly reflect these ideals. Nevertheless, this concern is only partially and insufficiently reflected in legislation. Legislators usually ignore the instrumental and methodological fundamentals of records management. Therefore, there is a need to update legislation on archives and records management with regard to access to information, transparency and accountability.