What’s Document Retention?
In the UK, the law requires organisations to keep different HR documents for a given period. The Data Protection Act, which administers this area, provides legislative retention periods for different records.
While the Data Protection Act allows organisations to keep some records for a maximum of six years, it lays down no fixed regulation on others. Here, I’ve formulated a detailed guide that’ll explain the documents that organisations need to keep and for how long.
Document retention describes the practices and techniques a given organisation uses to protect critical records and keep them for a required period until they're ready for storage, redirect or disposal. A document retention system involves both electronic and paper records.
Both records and documents describe an event’s piece of evidence that occurred within a company, including employment or transactions. Document retention is always driven by a policy system, infrastructure and scheduling that allow organisations to fulfil government regulations, laws and best practices that https://www.hyland.com also recommends.
The UK Legal Position
The introduction of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) updated the UK records retention law. Although the government requires organisations to keep employee data records, the General Data Protection Regulation makes that process more complicated.
The GDPR means employees can access employee information that an organisation holds. Also, it means that the organisation must manage the data correctly, and it should only hold it with good intentions and only for a specific period.
On the other hand, the DPA provides employees with rights regarding how companies process their information. It also provides information on the type of data organisations need to keep, including defence and national security.
Retention Periods Checklist
Many rules govern records retention, including how long a company can hold employee records. The period for which an organisation can hold records can’t be excessive: however, what’s considered a suitable time frame varies based on the record type. Here are the types of records and their respective retention periods.
Non-Statutory Records
According to the law, these records don't have any retention period. But organisations may want to keep them for future use or other reasons. Examples of non-statutory records include things like right-to-work checks, training records and CCTV footage, among others.
Statutory Records
These are records that the law allows organisations to keep for a certain period. They've different statutory data retention periods companies must adhere to. Here are the different types of statutory records and their retention periods.
- · Accident records: Three years from the initial entry.
- · Accounting records: Six years for public ltd companies and three years for private companies.
- · COVID-19 furlough records: Six years, including reference number, calculations, claim per employee and amounts claimed.
- · Medical records: Forty years from the initial entry date.
- · National minimum wage records: Three years after the pay reference period, following the one that records cover.
- · Retirement benefit schemes period: Six years from when the event occurred.
- · VAT Deferral: Six years.
- · Working time records: Two years from their creation date.
- · Income tax and NI returns: More than three years after the relevant financial year.
Organisations must keep some key data of previous employees even after leaving. These records may be vital in cases where previous employees make claims against the company.
The organisation can also use the records for future legal differences with other workplaces. The company can decide how long to keep records that don't have retention periods.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this release is not investment advice, financial advice, or trading advice. It is recommended that you practice due diligence (including consultation with a professional financial advisor) before investing or trading securities and cryptocurrency.
Original Source of the original story >> Key Document Retention Periods to be Aware of
