Disposal and Retention of Records

Records Retention Guidelines

Records that are no longer needed for day-to-day operations will be retained for a period which is usually 5 to 7 years in accordance with the records retention schedule set by National Archives Singapore (NAS). This records retention schedule applies to records kept in both paper and electronic registries. See some of the examples as shown in the table below:

Financial & Procurement records

eg. Approval of Requirement (AOR), Purchase Orders (PO),Delivery Order (DO), Invoices, Payment & Journal Vouchers, etc

• 7 years from the end of each calendar year (31 Dec).

Personnel records

e.g. Personal files, Confidential dossiers

• 5 years after the officers leave the service.

Functional & Operational records

e.g. records related to policy, procedures, instructions, operations, returns, reports, minutes of meetings, etc.

• 5 years from last action date