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Paula Sometimes common sense is not always practical. Yes, it is common sense to destroy 'whole of life' records earlier if someone dies well before their 'average' life expectancy. The main reason I can see for NOT destroying some of the files based on death is that it costs money to keep track of when someone dies and then do something after that death. Exceptions to a rule are extra work. You have to have a slightly more complicated procedure in place. You have to have some means of discovering the exception. You should weigh up the cost of these factors against the costs of storing the record for the remainder of the retention period. Also, you would probably find that relatively few records would be destroyed regularly. You are not going to make huge savings in storage space if you remove say, 1 file out of 100 every year. At the National Archives of Australia, we used to have many disposal actions like "Destroy 75 years after date of birth or X years after date of death, whichever is longer", but now we have simplified it to just be 75 years after date of birth. The practical factors made the decision more economic sense than 'common' sense. You will have to balance the cost of identifying the exceptions with the cost of just storing them (and factor in any risks in keeping the files for longer, if appropriate) Hope this helps John Lovejoy [log in to unmask] My own views, not necessarily my employers -----Original Message----- From: SMITH, Paula [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 9:17 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Retention of child files Dear All A colleague has raised an interesting query with me which I would appreciate your comments on. We run a children's home for children with severe learning disabilities and as such will keep a case file on each child. The retention period of these files is 75 years from the child's 18th birthday. But what happens when a child dies? The children's home in question would like to destroy these files on the basis that since the child cannot make any claims on the authority, there is no need to retain the files. I can see their argument but would not think this a defensible position. All comments welcome Paula *************************************************************************** Note: This E-Mail is intended for the addressee only and may include confidential information. Unauthorised recipients are requested to please advise the sender immediately by telephone and then delete the message without copying or storing it or disclosing its contents to any other person. We have taken all reasonable precautions to ensure that no viruses are transmitted from Cheshire County Council to any third party. Copyright in this e-mail and attachments created by us unless stated to the contrary belongs to Cheshire County Council. Any liability (in negligence or otherwise) arising from any party acting, or refraining from acting on any information contained in this e mail is hereby excluded. Should you communicate with anyone at Cheshire County Council by e-mail, you consent to us monitoring and reading any such correspondence. Printing this email? Please think environmentally and only print when essential! *************************************************************************** -- Scanned by The Sheriff - http://www.isheriff.com/