☛ By the very nature of Retention & Disposal Schedules it is essential that records are dated and that they are filed or stored in some manner that identifies the date or (at a minimum) the year of creation. The Schedules will then advise as to how many 'years' after that date the records should be retained for before disposal. For example:

☛ Current academic year + 5 years OR Life of course + 1 year

☛ There can be some confusion as to whether ‘year’ relates to the UK fiscal year, the University financial year, the ‘academic’ year or the calendar year. Some record sequences relate directly to an academic year whether that starts on 25 September or 28 September or 1 October (depending on which date is a Monday).

☛ In the event of the schedule stating that the (academic year) records can be disposed of after (for example) three years it is advisable to take this to be ‘after the end of the calendar year, three years after the end of the academic year’.

☛ For example, a record created on 5 November 2005 in the academic year 2005/06 with a 'Current academic year + 3 years' retention period could be considered for disposal after 31 December 2009.