Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.10 of JSP441 Defence Records Management Policy and Procedures, whether his Department's practice on data retention which means it can only provide information relating to (a) numbers of training courses, attendees costs, (b) maintenance, improvement and development costs, (c) accommodation, (d) travel costs and (e) building of storage facilities for only the preceding year meets the requirements of that paragraph; and if he will make a statement.

In areas of routine business, where there is unlikely to be need for permanent preservation of information and potential accession to The National Archives, decisions on whether to keep or destroy will be taken locally by the Senior Information Officer, Information Manager, or their staff. They will seek to balance the perceived future value of the information against the cost of retention, based on the departmental guidance in JSP 441 and elsewhere, and the training they have received