The way Humberside Fire & Rescue Service manage the records and information we have is set by a number of laws and regulations, many of these are about data protection and Freedom of Information.
Why does records management matter?
Records and information are very important in making sure that Humberside Fire & Rescue Service can work well. Records help us to make decisions, provide services and develop policies.
Records management is about how we look after records safely from the time they are created, used for our business activities, stored and kept until they are no longer needed and are deleted (the information life cycle). A record can be on paper, digital or a physical object.
These records are the Service’s corporate memory.
How does HFRS manage records?
Humberside Fire & Rescue Service has a number of policies, procedures, and guidance in place to make sure information is managed properly.
A key part of this is our retention schedule. This is a document that includes details about all the records we have, when we think we will no longer need them (when they reach the end of their life cycle) and what we will do with them at the end of their life.
The Service’s retention schedule has been made by working with all teams in the organisation to work out if there is any law or regulation which tells us how long we must keep the records for. Where there is nothing to tell us this, the length of time will be based on what we need as a business.