What information to keep, and for how long

Introduction and guidance

Retention Schedules are used to determine how long University records need to be kept for operational, legal and evidential purposes and, what happens at the end of that period.  They apply to all University records, whatever their format.

At least once a year, review your records and implement the actions described in the retention schedules.

Disposition of records

Most University information has short-term value and should be destroyed promptly and securely at the end of its retention period.

A small percentage of the information we create has long-term 'archival value'.  This information needs to be preserved in the University Museum and Archive at the end of its retention period.  For example, committee papers for Court and Senate.

Retention schedules

The following retention schedules cover all areas of University activity, whether through dedicated services or as part of a larger grouping of activities. They are divided into those which are common to all areas, even if this merely consists of a copy file for correspondence relating to that activity e.g. Insurance. There are also separate divisions for those activities which are carried out by Professional Services and those carried out by Schools. If you cannot find what you are looking for, or have a comment to make about specific schedules, contact the Information Governance team.

Common Retention Schedules for all Professional Services, Schools, Institutes, etc

• Audit (internal and external)
• Education and training
• Environmental management
• Equality and diversity
• Equipment and consumables
• Estates Management
• Facilities Management
• Finance
• Health & safety
• Human resources
• Insurance
• Procurement
• Public relations
• Quality management
• Records management
• Risk management
• Student life cycle (i.e. information relating to our relationship with students e.g. student rents, tuition fees whilst they are at the University, etc
• Student financial support (e.g.. hardship funding, bursaries, scholarships, remission fees, etc)

Professional Services

• Academic Awards
• Alumni Relations
• Archives Management
• Business Units (e.g. papers relating to the setting up of a 'Start-up company', Institute, etc)
• Collections management
• Commercial services
• Community relations
• Corporate management
• Corporate services
• Financial support
• Fundraising
• Governance
• Government relations
• HE-FE Sector
• ICT management (i.e. software and hardware projects e.g. SARP)
• Information compliance
• Intellectual property exploitation
• Intellectual property rights management
• Legal affairs
• Marketing
• Media relations
• Organisational development
• Parliamentary relations
• Publications management (e.g. covers Heriot-Watts' collections of publications)
• Publishing
• Related companies (e.g. EBS, Heriot-Watt Trading, ORIAM)
• Reporting (e.g. collecting and reporting management information and reports)
• Student relations
• Student services
• Tuition fees

Schools

• Academic programmes
• Consultancy (as provided by us)
• Heriot-Watt University student life cycle records (i.e. information relating to our relationship with students e.g. student rents, tuition fees whilst they are at the University, etc)
• Learning and Teaching
• Research
• Student assessment
• Teaching

Other

• Students Association Finance
• Students Union