Glossary
Disposition
Also called: disposal, records disposition
Disposition is what happens to a record when its retention period expires: destruction, transfer to an archive, or a decision to extend. It is the end of the records lifecycle, and the point at which a programme either produces defensible evidence or produces a problem.
Disposition explained
Review rather than deletion
The most requested feature in records management is automatic deletion at the end of a retention period. It is also the one worth resisting. Retention periods are judgements about legal exposure made years earlier, and a timer that destroys records will eventually destroy one that turns out to matter.
More fundamentally, an automated deletion cannot evidence who authorised it. "The system deleted it" is not an answer to a regulator, and it is the answer an automated schedule forces you to give.
What a defensible disposal leaves behind
A record of the disposal itself: which records, under which schedule item, authorised by whom, on what date, and confirmation that no legal hold was in force at the time. In the public sector a destruction certificate is often mandatory and retained permanently — the evidence outlives the records it describes, deliberately.
Transfer as an alternative
Not every expiry means destruction. Records of enduring value are transferred to an archive, which is a disposition action in its own right and is how governance and decision records are usually treated. A schedule with only one disposition action is usually under-specified.
Who authorises a disposal
Someone with authority, named, and not the person who created the record. Separating those two is the control that prevents a document being quietly disposed of by whoever finds it inconvenient, and it is a distinct permission from the ability to delete an individual file.
FAQ
Disposition: common questions
Can disposition ever be fully automated?
For high-volume, low-risk classes with no plausible legal exposure, yes, and it saves real effort. It should be a deliberate exception rather than the default, and it should still write an audit entry.
What if a record is under legal hold when its period expires?
Nothing happens until the hold is released. The hold overrides the schedule, and the review is raised again once it lifts.
Related terms
- Audit trailAn audit trail is an append-only record of every action taken on a document — views, downloads, edits, approvals, permission changes and deletions — with the acting user, timestamp and affected version.
- Chain of custodyChain of custody is the documented, unbroken record of who has held, accessed or altered an item of evidence, and when.
- Document controlDocument control is the discipline of ensuring only approved documents are in use, superseded ones cannot be mistaken for current, and every change is authorised and recorded.
- Information governanceInformation governance is the framework of accountability, policies and controls determining how an organisation creates, uses, retains and disposes of its information.
- Legal holdA legal hold suspends the routine destruction of records that may be relevant to litigation, an investigation or an audit.
- Records managementRecords management governs how long a document is kept and what happens at the end of that period.
最終レビュー: 2026年8月28日. Browse the full glossary.