Scottish Government records management plan

Element 5: Retention schedules

Records are retained and disposed of in accordance with the Retention Schedule.

Section 1(2)(b)(iii) of the Act specifically requires a RMP to include provision about the archiving and destruction or other disposal of the authority's public records.

An authority's RMP must demonstrate the existence of and adherence to corporate records retention procedures. The procedures should incorporate retention schedules and should detail the procedures that the authority follows to ensure records are routinely assigned disposal dates, that they are subsequently destroyed by a secure mechanism (see element 6) at the appropriate time, or preserved permanently by transfer to an appropriate physical repository or digital preservation system (See element 7).

The principal reasons for creating retention schedules are:

• to ensure records are kept for as long as they are needed and then disposed of appropriately.
• to ensure all legitimate considerations and future uses are considered in reaching the final decision.
• to provide clarity as to which records are currently held by an authority and which have been disposed of.

"Disposal" in this context does not necessarily mean destruction. It includes any action taken at the agreed disposal or review date including migration to another format and transfer to a permanent archive.

A retention schedule is an important tool for proper records management. Authorities who do not yet have a full retention schedule in place should show evidence that the importance of such a schedule is acknowledged by the senior person responsible for records management in an authority (see element 1). This might be done as part of the policy document (element 3). It should also be made clear that the authority has a retention schedule in development.

An authority's RMP must demonstrate the principle that retention rules are consistently applied across all of an authority's record systems. Best Practice might include:

• The Retention Schedule is arranged in accordance with business classification (see element 4).
• The Schedule is developed to comply with relevant legislation and statutory regulation.
• The Schedule identifies records of enduring value following professional archival advice and enables these to be selected in collaboration with the authority's archive provider.
• The Schedule identifies how long records are to be retained, which records require review for business and/or archival purposes and what their eventual disposition is to be.
• The Schedule is developed and reviewed to ensure compliance with data protection principles, and in particular the storage limitation principle.
• Business requirement is determined by the relevant business area.
• The Schedule is reviewed periodically (see element 13).

Read further explanation and guidance about element 5.

Scottish Government Statement

Scottish Government has a detailed retention and disposal policy. This is based on the key record types held by the organisation and their required retention periods which are in line with statutory and legislative obligations and business needs.

The retention and disposal schedules have been mapped to file types which are then used against the files created within eRDM. These are the standard retention schedules that all bodies covered by the SG plan use.

A standard records schedule is used for the retention and disposal of our legacy paper files.

Before the introduction of eRDM Divisions and Branches in SG could also draw up their own Branch/Divisional specific retention schedule to help the SG review team. These are still used to review pre-eRDM records.

At the moment we do not use retention and disposal schedules on shared drives, pst files and public folders. We plan to re-commence our project to review material in these locations and arrange for the material to be disposed of/added to eRDM in line with agreed retention schedules. A copy of the original policy document relating to the SG archival policy for shared drives is attached.

Evidence

E04: Scottish Government File type guidance

E05: Scottish Government Casework File type guidance

E06: Scottish Government Paper Records Retention Schedule pre-eRDM

E07: Example of branch own retention schedule

E36: Scottish Government Archival Project – Analysis and Interim Progress Report

E37: Scottish Government Archival Project – Project Mandate/PID

E57: Scottish Government Archival Policy for Shared Drives

Further Development

We will continue to review our retention and disposal schedules to make sure they continue to meet business needs.