Guidance on child protection records retention and storage

Every organisation that holds records about children or adults must have policies and procedures in place covering how you keep and store that information. 

As part of developing a safeguarding policy and procedures, you will need clear guidelines for how you keep, store and destroy records relating to child welfare concerns or concerns about possible risk posed by employees. 

We’ve created this guidance to help organisations understand the principles of keeping and managing records about child protection concerns. It introduces key points you need to consider when developing or reviewing your child protection records retention and storage policy and signposts to further information.

Authors: NSPCC
Published: 2020 - updated September 2023

Whilst guidelines exist for statutory and regulated organisations it is often less clear what organisations in the voluntary, community or private sectors should do. This guidance has been developed to assist them.