Written question asked by Bernard Jenkin (Conservative) on Monday, 1 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 4 February 2010. It was answered by Joan Ruddock (Labour) on Tuesday, 9 February 2010 on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Email

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what his Department's policy is on the deletion of emails; and what mechanism is in place to ensure adherence to guidance issued to departments by the National Archives on electronic records management.

Answer: [holding answer 4 February 2010]: DECC was created in November 2008 from parts of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). Both Departments had in place their own policies and procedures for electronic records management, including email deletion, which my Department has largely adopted while we develop our own policies and procedures.Deletion of emailsThe policy for DECC staff who moved from BIS, and staff new to the Department, is for emails to be automatically deleted after 12 months. The policy for staff who moved from DEFRA is for emails to be kept with no automatic deletion, however at the point of joining DECC, the emails were subject to the DEFRA deletion policy of three years. I anticipate that from April 2010 the Department will be adopting a single policy for all, which will include emails being automatically deleted after 12 months.Electronic records managementThe Department is implementing electronic records management based on a software product recommended by The National Archives. My officials continue to work with The National Archives to help us be consistent with their guidance.

Secondary information