Recordkeeping and Retention By-Law

1. Short title

1.1 This By-Law shall be known as the "Recordkeeping and Retention" for The Corporation of Norfolk County, hereinafter ("the County").

2. Definitions

2.1 "Archival" means document that has historical value for Norfolk County.

2.2 "Business Records" shall mean records belonging to Norfolk County that maintain evidence of the Corporation meeting statutory, legal, financial, and operational obligations or making decisions including documents such as:

• • Financial statements, studies and rolls
  • Finalized by-laws and minutes
  • Plans, drawings and maps, technical reports, applications, zoning
  • Staff reports, daily logs and inspections
  • Manuals, policies, procedures and mission statements
  • Permits and licences, surveys, statistics
  • Client and case files

2.3 "Disposal" shall mean secured records destruction or transferral to Norfolk County Archives.

2.4 "Permanent Retention" means document shall be kept in the possession of Norfolk County for as long at Norfolk County exists.

2.5 "Record" shall mean information recorded, stored or kept in any format.

2.6 "Retention" shall be the length of time the group of records are kept.

2.7 "Retention Schedule" means the schedule prescribing retention periods for records as set out in Schedule 1 attached to this by-law.

2.8 "Secure Destruction" means ensuring records cannot be retrieved or recreated in any fashion.

2.9 "Signing Authority" means the County Clerk of Norfolk County.

2.10 "Transitory Records" shall mean records of temporary use and not required as evidence of any obligations and decisions made by Norfolk County such as:

• • Duplicate or convenience copies
  • Unsolicited or spam telephone and email messages
  • Working papers, preliminary drafts and similar materials, summarized and published in other forms
  • External publications and reference materials
  • Non-finalized meeting minutes.

2.11 "Year" shall mean a full calendar year commencing on January 1 and terminating on December 31.

3. Application

3.1 This By-Law shall not apply to transitory records and such records may be destroyed at any time.

4. Provisions

4.1 Business Records belonging to the Corporation are categorized and described in the Norfolk County Records Classification System, including but not limited to defining the records retention, archival or historical value, records accessibility to the public and department where records can be located. Hereafter the Norfolk County Records Classification System will be updated annually and approved by Norfolk County's Senior Leadership Team.

4.2 Upon the Clerk being satisfied that the relevant retention period established by the By-law has expired and that no reason exists for further retention, the Clerk may assign any applicable records to be disposed, or to be set aside for permanent retention in a records repository designated by the Clerk.

4.3 Records designated with permanent retention in the Norfolk County Records Classification System shall be kept in the care or under the control of the Clerk or a Records Manager assigned by the Clerk.

4.4 Electronic records may be stored in Norfolk County's document management systems, databases, shared drives, servers or SharePoint sites. Records classifications and retention periods indicated in the Records Retention Schedule apply equally to paper, electronic or any other records format.

4.5 Records designated with archival value in the Norfolk County Records Classification System shall be transferred to the Archivist at the time of records disposal.

5. Repealing By-laws

5.1 By-law 2001-10 passed on the 27th day of February in the year 2001 and By-law 2007-214 pass on the 23rd day of October in the year 2007 are hereby repealed.

6. Effective Date

6.1 That the effective date of this By-Law and all its schedules shall be the date of passage thereof.

Enacted and passed this 17th day of November, 2020