I endorse Keith's comments with the caveat firstly to educate your lawyers on the difference between being risk-aware and being risk-averse.
On the 'just in case' point I would also add that there is possibly as much litigation lost because things were kept 'just in case', as is won because things were kept 'just in case' and this needs to be taken into account when assessing risk.
Phillip Bradshaw
Information Manager
Clerk to the Council
Room 111, County Hall
EMail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 029 2087 3346
Fax: 029 2087 3349
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Records Management mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Batchelor
Sent: 13 October 2006 15:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Basis for Retention Decisons
All retention times are based on a business risk. Cost of storage, cost of staff time to administer v embarrassment, litigation costs.
Legislation does give periods of minimum retention from time to time. It is up to organisations to decide whether to follow it or keep it for longer.
In some cases organisation destroy before the minimum time (Like not wearing a seat belt)
Only your organisation can make the decision based on such a risk assessment. I recommend you consult your insurance and legal personnel as part of such a risk assessment.
regards
Keith Batchelor
Batchelor Associates
Records Management & Health and Safety
http://surf.to/keith.batchelor
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Claire Park" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:07 PM
Subject: Basis for Retention Decisons
All
I was reading a previous post just now and I've had a thought and would
appreciate opinions.
With the exception of records that are to be kept for statutory or
legislative purposes what is the real reason for us applying retention
periods to "all other records"?
Is strikes me that in some but not all cases we aren't protecting the
interests of the organisation but rather attempting to predict when they
may be of use by an individual or group of individuals. For example in
compensation claims. Are we really in a position to try and predict this?
It seems like complete nonsense to me to retain a particular set of
records because they may be handy a couple of times during a 20 year
period - this is not financially viable and something I see as a total
waste of resources. Clearly records need to be assessed for historic or
educational value but how does this affect records that are neither but we
think we should hang onto them "just in case". To a large extent within
this organisation record retention is accidental as there have never been
any formal guidelines. In many cases information is found because someone
has been good enough to hang on to it!
Thanks
Claire
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