Governance and compliance

compliance

Subscribing organisations have access to a specialist suite of compliance tools that will help keep you up-to-date with changing legislation, allow you to rationalise your operations and save time and money.

Powers & Duties

Information on what current primary legislation gives English and Welsh councils the power to do and what it requires them to do in law.

The guidance is assembled by Invicta Law Legal Services team, in partnership with LG Inform Plus, to support authorities when making decisions about services they should provide.

Please note you need to be signed in and subscribed to use this tool. To learn more, read our  Guide to Powers & Duties 

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Records retention

Records Retention information guides English councils on the types of records that could be kept for each service to ensure compliance with the Code of Practice (issued by DCMS in July 2021) on the management of records and to meet likely business needs.

The guidance describes how long records need to be kept before destruction or transfer to the archives. You can construct your own retention schedule to:

  • manage compliance with legislation
  • manage disposal in line with Data Protection rules
  • identify records containing personal or special information quickly
  • improve access to relevant documents and remove old ones
  • reduce storage and backup costs
  • improve access requested under the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations
  • improve open government

This guidance represents an interpretation of retention requirements which you can use to check and improve your own retention schedule. We recommend that each council's legal department check and approve its own schedule.

Please note you need to be signed in and subscribed to use this tool. To learn more, read our Guide to Records Retention

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See all records retention guidance

Information Asset Register (IAR) and Record of Processing Activity (RoPA)

The Information Asset Register (IAR)/Record of Processing Activity (RoPA) modules helps authorities maintain a register of their assets, systems and applications used for processing or storing information across the organisation and helps to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Councils who collect and process personal data are required by the Data Protection Act 2018 to maintain a RoPA..

This tool provides:

  • Templates to download and complete both an IAR and a RoPA using standard spreadsheet software.  The RoPA template complies with GDPR and with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
  • Advanced search controls which allow you to find specific IAR and/or RoPA Records immediately
  • A way to identify records containing personal or special information quickly
  • Automatically generated privacy notices for RoPA records for you to link to your website.
Please note you need to be signed in and subscribed to use this tool. To learn more, read our Guide to IAR and Record of Processing Activity (RoPA)