SCIG16445 - Procedural Matters: Records Management and Retention: Naming convention principles

A set of principles has been developed to provide consistency of approach across HMRC in the way that we store documents electronically. The benefits of storing documents in this way are:-

• To provide a simplified way of storing and locating information
• To provide transparency through the business. It will be easier for people to review material, grasp the sequence of events and see the current position
• Efficiency in responding to legislative requests eg DPA and FOI requests

You should use the following elements to compose a name for any documents you are storing on your IT system. You must use the elements in the following order:-

• The current date in reverse order (ie YYMMDD)
• The author’s initials
• Document name. Please make sure you retain the same name throughout the life of the document regardless of the amendments you may make to it
• If there is likely to be more than one version of the document, you should include a version number. The convention for this is that drafts are shown as v0.1, v.0.2 etc; final or approved versions are shown as v1.0, v2.0 etc and minor amendments to final or approved versions are shown as v1.1, v2.1 etc

It is difficult to devise a strict convention for saving documents amended by anyone other than the author. However, wherever possible, please follow these guidelines:-

• Documents circulated for comment only - track changes and save the document under its original name. If the author adopts the comments, s/he should change the date and version number of the document
• Documents forwarded for authorisation eg a Registration Report - if an Operational Leader makes additional comments on a document and subsequently authorises it, this should become the latest version. It should be saved with a new date, the Operational Leader’s initials and the new version number.

When naming documents please:-

• Use spaces rather than underscores (“_”) to separate words in file names
• Only use abbreviations that are included in the official departmental (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) 
• Do not use jargon
• Add a link where you need to store a number of documents or emails relating to the same issue together. For example, if you want to save 10 separate notes of telephone conversations relating to the same issue, you would use the same document name, but with a unique identifying number eg 070514 LP telecon1.doc, ……. 070514 LP telecon10.doc

It is very important that you destroy all historical versions of a document in accordance with the Freedom of Information (FOI), Data Protection Act (DPA) and (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000).