A question for you all.
I need to get a better understanding of the point in the records managment
process at which the dates for destruction on a record series is set.
My belief, backed up by conversations with a few people off list, is that
the Record Series should have a single retention period applied to it -
e.g. all files in "Record Series 'X'" should be ones that need to be
retained for six years, rather than a mixture of different retention
periods.
Do I therefore determine the date for distruction based on the start date
of the Record Series - a known entity, or apply the rentention period once
the Record Series is full - which cannot be known?
Thinking out loud here, it occurs to me that one could control this by
imposing strict insistance on date ranges on Record Series - e.g. "Record
Series 'X' 2005-2006" - thus the start of the 6 year retention period can
be a known entity regardless of whether it is applied at the start or the
end of the Record Series. Does this sound reasonable?
On a similar theme; Archive dates... Since I cannot reasonably be expected
to predict how long it will take to fill a Record Series, do I allow the
individual Departmental Record Officers to determine when archiving occurs
on a basis of space requirements or redundancy?
I hope this all makes sense. Look forward to hearing your responses.
Regards,
Fraser Marshall (LB Tower Hamlets)
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