Can anyone tell me how long you should keep a Declaration of Conformity which accompanies a product (e.g. hand held power tools) under the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 for? I'm currently reviewing our asset management procedures from a safety perspective and my gut is telling me to keep them for three years after disposal of the equipment but I can't find anything which gives a recommendation or sets this in stone.

We are end users of the equipment. The types of equipment I am talking about are primarily hand held power tools and work equipment used in welding/fabrication processes e.g saws, drills, generators etc

I'm reviewing our asset management procedures as at the moment we don't actually keep these kinds of records outwith the copies of the user manual which accompanies the product which obviously gets lost. I feel to help cover ourselves we should be retaining this documentation for the duration the products are in use and then some but I just don't know how long we should be keeping them for. I fully intend to retain these documents electronically so paperwork isn't an issue.