On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Lamont, Laura D [Perfect Output Vendor for
Sprint] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Is the retention of your Retention Schedule itself permanent?  If so, what
> is the basis for this retention:  business reason, regulation, best
> practice or something else?
>
> Here at Sprint, and most of the other places I've worked, the retention of
> the Schedule itself is permanent.  But recently, I was asked why is the
> retention permanent.  I know the reasons why I think it's important to keep
> each version permanently, but couldn't come up with a definitive
> regulation, standard or best practice.
>

Steve's "Five Factor" test is right on the money, if you have no hard fast
guidance to point to
Tod's citations are great if you're federally regulated and someone
questions why you did something

What you need to ask on the Operational side is "what are the risks we face
if we cannot cite past retention periods when we change our schedule?" and
balance that with the follow-up of "How frequently do we change our
schedule, and do we typically shorten or lengthen retention periods?"

Our retention schedule is a "living document"- it changes periodically
based primarily on changes to cited sources for retention periods or
moratoriums against destruction, but occasionally, we either add a series
or 'split' a series and set a new retention period for a portion of records
in an existing series.

We save all background information for changes (Permanent) and we save a
table of changes that reflects WHAT was changed (Permanent) but we replace
the schedule itself when it becomes superseded by a new revision.

If a question ever comes up about WHAT changed and WHY it changed, we can
go to the above items and justify any changes that took place and show when
it happened.  As for retention periods applied to electronic records, the
system logs changes made and retains that information as part of the
metadata.

Larry
[log in to unmask]
-- 
*Lawrence J. Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972*

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