Records Retention Schedules
This is the third of five phases in the records management process.
A retention schedule is a list of records for which pre-determined destruction dates have been established. It is also known by a variety of other names including disposal schedules, and destruction schedules. The aim of the information audit is to establish those categories of records for which there is a known disposal date. The Retention Schedule brings all this information together in a single report.
It has three objectives:
disposal of those records which have completed their retention period
storage of records which have to be kept temporarily after they are no longer needed for current business
preservation of records which are of long-term or historic value
In practice the schedule will have dates varying from a few months to permanent retention, as outlined in the section on retention periods.
Practical examples of the retention periods required in FE and HE by law and statutory regulation is to be found in 'The Study of the Records Lifecycle: HEI Function and Activity Model'.
An example for just one small area in an HE institution looks as follows:
This example is taken from the JISC project on Student Assessment records at Northumbria University.
