A broad overview
First published on this website in June 2023 as A55 and last updated in February 2025 as A52
Synopsis
This Article seeks to summarise legal and best practice requirements for both the management and retention of church records.
The first part addresses six issues:
- Record management
- Holding records
- Legal requirements (such as GDPR)
- Security
- Your church’s story
- Implementation
The second part summarises retention needs for different categories of record: HR, financial, governance/legal, property (health and safety), safeguarding and administration.
The final part shows how the structure of this Article can be used to write a Document Management/Retention Policy and then gives a list of weblinks to provide more detail than has been possible in this overview.
Download
Here is the link to this item:
A52 - The management of church records.pdf
Author's notes
This item was updated in February 2025 with minor amendments and a new reference code of A52.