Managing National Highways' records
National Highways has a legal obligation to create and maintain a record of what we did, how we did it, who did it and who told us we could do it.
Requirement
National Highways is responsible for creating and maintaining a record of activity. These records must be stored in the appropriate system. Records are managed and disposed of in-line with National Highways retention and disposal schedule and National Highways records that destruction.
Any Supplier managing records on behalf of National Highways ensures it meets its legal obligations by:
- either storing records that the Supplier creates in the appropriate National Highways system or in their own system suitable for managing records in line with National Highways' requirements.
- returning the records to National Highways at contract end.
National Highways retention and disposal schedule applies in either case.
A record consists of:
- decisions made, and how decisions were taken
- National Highways built asset designs, maintenance and inspection
- advice given or received
- facts and figures that support the decisions that were made
- National Highways income and expenditure returns
- financial and contractual propriety
- how suppliers complied with guidance on dealing with the public
Specification
National Highways records must be managed until their agreed retention period has expired.
National Highways maintains a retention and disposal schedule which will be applied across all formats and systems. Suppliers managing records on National Highways behalf must also apply this schedule.
National Highways records management team will review records marked in the schedule as suitable for long term preservation and send them to the National Archives.
If unsuitable for the National Archives, but of social interest, National Highways will offer them to local archives.
The Supplier ensures all other records that have reached the end of their life are destroyed:
- paper based records must be securely shredded
- electronic records must be destroyed by either secure destruction of the medium they are stored on or over-written.
Where records are destroyed within the supply chain, the Supplier must submit a destruction certificate to National Highways records management team as proof of destruction.
