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The retention period relating to e-mails sent or received by anyone in the Wales Office, including Ministers, officials, and special advisers, would be dependent upon the nature of any individual e-mail.E-mails held in individuals' accounts do not necessarily form part of the Department's record keeping in their own right. However, e-mails which are significant enough to form part of the information to be held within an electronic or paper file, for example as part of a policy-making process, are subject to the Department's Record Retention and Disposition Schedules, and would be retained for the length of time the file is retained.The Public Records Act 1958 [PRA] requires Government Departments to destroy any of their records which are not selected for permanent preservation. The Act does not specify when such destruction must take place but MOJ has Record Retention and Disposition Schedules (RRDS) setting out how long to retain each type of record. The length of time for which any record is held by the Wales Office is determined by two criteria: the business need of the area holding the record; and any legislative requirements.The Wales Office is provided with its IT and e-mail services by the Ministry of Justice. E-mails which are not transferred to corporate files are automatically deleted after a period of three years. If deleted before that by the user, e-mails are still stored elsewhere for a period of 30 days before being deleted from the system entirely. After that any retrieval would be dependent on the type of backup which is performed. |