Help and advice for parishes and Diocesan staff
RCAOS Archives & Records Management Advice for Parishes
The Diocesan Archivist has written this comprehensive guide to managing parish records. It is highly recommended that parish staff refer to it when looking for advice on managing parish records.
Record keeping and Retention Advice for parishes
The guide includes information on:
- Caring for paper records including storage options;
- Caring for digital records including storage options, cyber security, email management, caring for digital archives and digitisation;
- Creating and managing a parish archive;
- Record disposal;
- Data protection and GDPR;
- A detailed Record Retention Schedule giving advice on how long parish records need to be kept for;
- Dealing with damaged records;
- Useful resources.
Further advice on managing archives and records for Diocesan and parish staff can be found on the Diocesan Resource Centre: https://inside.rcaos.org.uk/.
The Diocesan Archive staff are happy to assist parishes and Diocesan staff with any record or archive related query:
Jenny Delves, Diocesan Archivist (working days: Monday and Tuesday)
archives@rcaos.org.uk
T: 020 7928 5592
Findmypast for parishes
If your parish has not yet set up its free log-in to the Findmypast website, please contact the Diocesan Archivist for assistance.
Archive policies and documents
- Access Policy
- Record Closure Policy
- Personal Data Policy
- Acquisition Policy
- Data Protection, GDPR and parish archives
- Record keeping and retention advice for parishes
- Records Retention Schedule (full version)
- Records Retention Schedule (abridged version)
- Archive User Agreement
Catholic archive links
Catholic Archive Society: https://catholicarchivesociety.org/
Catholic Heritage (the website for the Networking Archives and Libraries in the Catholic Church project): https://www.catholic-heritage.net/
