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One can always take the pragmatic approach to records retention, but at what cost.  Let's look at the broader issues.  A contract employee may be exposed to a number of environmental, chemical, natural hazards.  Buildings may be contaminated with active viruses, (e.g. legionella), or other contaminants such as asbestos, (a once renowned cheap building material).  The building could be on a contaminated site, (lead, arsenic, or other pollutants).  Unless you are sure, can you really risk destroying contract records after six months?  Often this information is not readily available, and requires further research.

Contract records are also subject to audit scrutiny, particularly in Government, if records are destroyed prior to an audit, how can government remain accountable?  Again, one can argue that some of the audit information may be able to be sourced from structured records, (HRM and payroll databases), however auditors don't just look at the figures, they need access to supporting information, - the contract records.

Record retention is never easy.  If you are prepared to take the risk, then destroy records early, however we as practitioners, often  responsible for FOI, Privacy, accurate recordkeeping, need to look at record retention from a broader context before making recommendations, weighing out all the issues, not just space.

Personally, I would never make a disposal recommendation without being sure I'm familiar with the legislative, fiscal, administrative context of the Organisation.

Rosemary Kaczynski MRMA
PRINCIPAL
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANCY
VICTORIA AUSTRALIA

David Hogan wrote:

Provided that there are not any serious contentious personnel issues,
accidents/claims, etc then I believe that short term contract personnel
information contracted for a three months tenure or less should be kept only
for six months from contract end. However, you may wish to keep basic
contact details on a data base for possible rehire of personnel.

Please note this is not based on any official policy but viewed as a
realistic  approach to maintaining short term contractor records for the
minimum time and disposing of them in a business and cost effective manner.

David Hogan

Senior Records Officer Department of Industry and Resources, Perth WA

-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Walker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, 18 February 2003 11:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Retention for short-term contracts

My organization (OSCE) is involved in election monitoring in many
countries.  This means hiring large numbers of people for roughly 1 or 2
months.  I have investigated the PRO website and seen the retention
schedule for personnel records and for contracts - any thoughts on
appropriate retention for short-term personnel contracts?

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