The end and start of a year marks annual clean-up time for many of us.
While these are popular times to organise your service’s documents, before you throw away or delete any records (hardcopy or electronic), double check the record keeping requirements under the
relevant legislation.
Before disposing of or deleting records, also think about your responsibilities for privacy and confidentiality.
This is particularly important for records containing personal details, such as a child’s name, age, date of birth, address and parent or carer information.
Different records may include information that might identify an individual, such as photographs, audio, employment or financial details and data received electronically.
If you’ve checked everything and you don’t need to keep the record, you could return it to the family, use a shredder or consider professional waste disposal.
Services operating under the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law) must keep records in accordance with s. 175 of the National Law and Regulations 177, 178 and 183 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations.
Services operating under the
Education and Care Services Act 2013 (Qld) (ECS Act) must keep records with section 128 of the ECS Act and Regulations 69 and 70 and Schedule 4 of the Education and Care Services Regulation 2013 (Qld).
It is important that all services review the new guidance for record keeping (PDF, 124KB) produced last year by ACECQA in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse. This guidance reflects the Royal Commission’s recommendation that organisations engaged in child-related work retain records relating to child sexual abuse that has, or is alleged to have occurred, for at least 45 years. This guidance sets out best practice for record keeping and aims to:
- strengthen whole service awareness of child protections laws and individual reporting obligations, including resources related to child protection reporting
- enhance and appropriately maintain the record keeping practices of all employers and employees including volunteers in relation to actual or alleged incidents of child abuse
- ensure relevant records and information will be easily accessible to survivors of child sexual abuse.
Related information
For more information about storing personal information, visit the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website.
If your service operates under the ECS Act, visit the
Office of the Information Privacy Commissioner Queensland’s website.