Posted By Bernie Hello, May sound like a stupid question but is there a legal requirement about how long do we have to keep record of H&S documents (H&S policy, RA, MS) of contractors after they stop working for the company? Thank you for your help. Bern

Posted By Pat Hannaway I agree with Heather and would add that if you are involved with Hazardous Substances and associated employee monitoring, you may need to keep records of your individual employee monitoring and COSHH assesments for 40 years (COSHH Regualtions).

Posted By Heather Aston Eric Fair point in relation to schools. We keep many records for much longer than this anyway - I have personnel records over 100 years old and monitoring records from the 1960s. It can become silly if you try to keep everything though as I'm sure you've found and in the case Bernie mentioned, which was records relating to external contractors, I would think three years is likely to be more than enough. I would certainly retain, for example records of accidents to children and records of policies and procedures governing the running of the school itself for much longer. Heather (I was once asked for personnel records relating to employment in the 1920s - anyone beat that!)