On 1/4/06, Laura Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Is anyone familiar with the disposition for Re-occurring reports which
> are due to Congress?  They concern different programs which an agency is
> responsible for.



I think it may be a bit more complex than it seems, unfortunately.  Not only
is there the GRS to contend with (to determine the retention period for
records generated by Federal Agencies) but many Agencies have their own
Administrative schedules as well.

And while it may seem there would be a single retention period for these,
the retention may be tied to the content of the report more than the
form/format or who it is delivered to.  Granted, the majority of the
information included in these reports comes from other sources, all of which
have their own specific retention periods and the (source) information is
being retained officially there. These compilations of information may
contain extractions of information from various sources and be the only
representation of this information in a unified form, and are therefore a
record on their own that requires scheduling.

GRS 16, Item 1a, addresses "administrative issuances" and states they are to
be destroyed when superseded or obsolete, which would indicate as soon as a
subsequent report on the same subject is issued... however, taking the
content into consideration, it's unlikely that the subsequent report will
contain updates on the same content, but rather reflect NEW content.

In the preamble to GRS 16,. it says:

******************************************
The organizational locations and titles of administrative management units
vary from agency to agency. They may be scattered at numerous levels or
locations, or may be centralized. For the purposes of this schedule, the
nomenclature standards set forth by the Senate Committee on Government
Operations in Senate Report No. 245, 80th Congress, 1st session, are
followed:  the first organizational level within an agency is the bureau
level; subordinate components are, successively, division, branch, section,
and unit.

 This schedule is based on the presumption that management activities are
carried on by a specialized person or unit with, at least, division-wide and
usually bureau-wide or agency-wide responsibilities or by a group of such
persons or units in an agency, although its provisions are applicable to
exactly comparable records of agencies without such formal assignments of
responsibility. Many similar or comparable records created at lower
organizational levels or in field offices vary so greatly in content, value,
and arrangement that they are not covered by this schedule.
Because of the nature of the activities documented by administrative
management records, a relatively large proportion of them are of continuing
value.
***********************************************

However, in the recently issued GRS 27, Item 5 "CIO Committee Records"
includes reports, and says they are to be destroyed after 5 years.

So this, as with many Federal Retention instructions, is subject to a need
for further investigation and the retention period will need to be
determined on the content, usage and agency generating the information.

Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance