What Information to keep, and for how long?

Introduction and guidance

Retention Schedules are used to determine:

• what happens to a record during its lifetime,
• how long it needs to be kept for operational, legal and evidential purposes and:
• what happens to that record when it reaches the end of its life.

They apply to all University records in all formats i.e.. paper or electronic

At least every year we should all check the retention schedules for the information that we manage and take action to destroy, transfer or archive our records.

Disposition of records

Destroy

Most University information has short-term value and should be destroyed promptly and securely at the end of its retention span. Examples include: meeting notifications; invitations to events, courses, conferences etc.

Retain

Information which needs to be retained securely for a longer but finite period evidential or reference purposes. Records should either be transferred to HIG for secure storage or held in a protected area of the School or Service shared drive, for example: expenses claims.

Archive

A small percentage of the information we create today and tomorrow will have permanent value as part of our University memory. This needs to be preserved in the University Archive for example: Committee papers for Court and Senate and those committees which report to them.

Retention schedules

The following retention schedules cover all areas of activity which are carried out within the University, 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 us at Heritage & Information Governance.

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