Our retention schedule

Details

• Name of service - Corporate Information Governance
• Directorate - Resources - Law and Governance
• Date of current version - November 2021
• Review date - November 2025

The retention schedule sets out the amount of time that Surrey County Council needs to keep certain types of records. It applies to records in all formats, including paper and electronic information. These retention schedules were published in November 2021.

Using the retention schedule: guidance for staff

The retention schedule contains all the retention periods which have been agreed across Surrey County Council. These have been based upon primarily Kent County Council's retention schedules with some additions from the Local Government Association retention schedule.

These are minimum retention periods, so once documentation has reached the end of its retention period you may wish to review it to see if it needs to be retained any longer. If you decide that records should be kept for a longer period of time then this decision should be documented and a new review date assigned.

Retention schedules should identify and describe record collections, series or systems, not individual records. Retention schedules are applied to the subject of the items and not the medium. A photo, video, recording should be treated in the same way as a document or email. Records should be kept in line of business systems or SharePoint. They should not be kept on phones or in email accounts.

Email is a medium and therefore it has no specific retention schedule. The subject of the email is the important element. Services, and in particular staff, should decide which must be kept as records in line with the retention schedule and moved out of the email system into an appropriate storage solution. Please remember when staff have left, the maximum a mailbox is kept is 3 months.

Article 5 of GDPR states that personal information must not be kept for longer than necessary. If you wish to keep personal data beyond the retention period shown in this document, then please contact the Corporate Information Governance team for further advice or assistance.

When records have reached the end of their agreed retention period they should be securely disposed of. If necessary, please use the off-site storage contract for storing records but any sent to the contractor must be registered properly, including a destruction date. If you need to do this, please contact the Records Management Officer.

The schedule is arranged into different sections or classifications. It is not arranged by department but by function. This is to assist in future proofing the organisation. If you cannot find an acceptable destruction date, please contact the Corporate Information Governance team for help.

Corporate Information Governance team

The team can be contacted by email: corporaterm@surreycc.gov.uk

Files available to download

• Adoption 2016 retention schedule (PDF)
  How the Adoption Service retain, archive and destroy documents (2016)
• Adult Social Care Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Adult Social Care
• Children General Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Childrens, general
• Communications Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Communications
• Corporate Leadership Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Corporate Leadership
• Customer Services Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Customer Services
• Democracy & Governance Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Democracy & Governance
• Education & Skills Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Education Service
• Emergency Management Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Emergency Management
• Environmental Protection Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by the Environmental Protection Service
• Finance Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Finance
• Health & Safety Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention Schedule for records relating to Health and Safety
• Fostering Retention Schedule 2016 (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Fostering
• HR & Organisational Development (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by HR & Organisational Development Service
• Information Management Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records relating to Information Management
• Land & Property Services Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Land & Property
• Legal Services Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Legal Services
• Libraries & Archives Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by the Library Service
• Planning & Building Control Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records relating to Planning and Building Control
• Procurement Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Procurement Service
• Fire & Rescue Service Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service
• Registration Service Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by the Registration Service
• Risk Management & Insurance Services Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Risk Management and Insurance Services
• Trading Standards Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Trading Standards
• Transport & Infrastructure Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records relating to Transport and Infrastructure
• Video Recording Retention Schedule 2016 (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held on video
• Waste Retention Schedule (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records relating to Waste
• Youth Court Retention Schedule 2016 (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Youth Court
• Youth Training Retention Schedule 2016 (PDF)
  Retention schedule for records held by Youth Training