While having a document retention policy has been a necessity for decades, the Data Protection Act has specific guidelines on how information should be stored and accessed. Organisations sometimes complain that the Act states that personal information must not be kept “for longer than is necessary” but equally should not be deleted “where there is a real business need to retain it”.

The key is to retain information as long as legally required but that documents should then be destroyed immediately afterwards.  Examples for some documents are:

• References – one year
• References given/information to enable reference to be provided – five years from the reference or end of employment
• Pay roll and tax information – six years
• Sickness records – three years
• Summary of record of service – ten years from end of employment

Organisations also need to bear in mind any guidelines from their own profession or relevant legal time limits on claims when setting up a document retention/disposal policy.

There is unfortunately no practical substitute for evaluating the need for and relevance of a particular document in each instance as there may be longer retention periods for some documents than others or different needs for certain employees.

This article is for the purpose of general awareness only and the law may have changed since it was originally published.  It does not constitute legal or professional advice and readers should not act on the basis of the information included.  Readers should take appropriate advice upon their own particular circumstances.

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