My understanding is that retention of accounts is the same as limited companies. The place to look to be sure will be the Charities Act which (I think – and don’t quote me on this) is the same or very similar to  the Companies Act). Certainly in my limited experience of charities (being Chairman of a PTA) we have it written into our articles that accounts will be kept for seven years.

I can understand the need to keep personal related accounts information for longer  - Deed of covenant perhaps?

Never heard of Buzzacotts – the only hit on Google seems to be that they are Chartered Accountants. Did they write the guidance?

I’m archiving/destroying data (both personal and non-personal) and I have many years of charity accounts that I administer on behalf of my organisation.

I assumed that the retention period for the annual accounts would be similar to other financial information (6 years + 1) but I’d thought I’d check on the Charity Commission’s website, upon which I found a document call ‘Buzzacott – Retention of Accounting Records’.

In this it states I should keep charity annual accounts ‘permanently’ and that the reason for this is the ‘Data Protection Act’.

This is totally wrong isn’t it? I’m starting to question myself as it seems so blatantly incorrect.

Thanks

Steve

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Stephen Cotterill
Procurement & Technical Officer x3296
Broxtowe Borough Council
Resources Directorate
Council Offices, Foster Avenue,
Beeston, Nottingham, NG9 1AB
Tel: 0115 917 7777
Fax: 0115 917 3577
www.broxtowe.gov.uk

View our procurement page at: www.broxtowe.gov.uk/procurement
View our contracts notice board: www.sourcenottinghamshire.co.uk
Payments to Suppliers are published at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/paymentstosuppliers

Internal Users only - View our Procurement Intranet page at: http://intranet/index.aspx?articleid=2754

Internal Users only - View our Information Management Intranet page at: http://intranet/index.aspx?articleid=4073

DISCLAIMER:
This email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this email is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this email in error please contact the IT Service Desk at Broxtowe Borough Council on [log in to unmask] or telephone 0115 917 3194.
Senders and recipients of email should be aware that, under current legislation, the contents may be monitored and will be retained. The contents of the email may have to be disclosed in response to a request.
This disclaimer confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses.

All archives of messages are stored permanently and are available to the world wide web community at large at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html

Selected commands (the command has been filled in below in the body of the email if you are receiving emails in HTML format):

• Leaving this list: send leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
• Suspending emails from all JISCMail lists: send SET * NOMAIL to [log in to unmask]
• To receive emails from this list in text format: send SET data-protection NOHTML to [log in to unmask]
• To receive emails from this list in HTML format: send SET data-protection HTML to [log in to unmask]

All user commands can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm and are sent in the body of an otherwise blank email to [log in to unmask]

Any queries about sending or receiving messages please send to the list owner [log in to unmask]

(Please send all commands to [log in to unmask] not the list or the moderators, and all requests for technical help to [log in to unmask], the general office helpline)