Under the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, a child's case records must be kept for 75 years from the child's date of birth. If the child dies before the age of 18, they must be kept for 15 years from the date of death. The records a home keeps about its own operation, listed in Schedule 4, must be retained for at least 15 years from the date of the last entry.
Record retention is one of those requirements that sits quietly in the background until something forces the question: a home closing, a subject access request, an archive that has quietly filled a locked cupboard, or an inspector asking where the records for a child who left in 2019 are held.
It is also an area where the sector repeats figures that don't match the Regulations. This guide sets out what the legislation actually says, which records fall under which period, and how to handle the categories the Regulations leave open. It applies to Ofsted-registered children's homes in England.
The retention periods at a glance
| Record | How long it must be kept | Source |
|---|---|---|
| A child's case records (the Schedule 3 information) | 75 years from the child's date of birth | Reg 36(2)(b) |
| Case records where a child dies before the age of 18 | 15 years from the date of the child's death | Reg 36(2)(a) |
| Schedule 4 records: register of children, staff records, duty rosters, visitors, fire drills, accounts | At least 15 years from the date of the last entry | Reg 37(2)(c) |
| Complaints records, independent person's (Reg 44) reports, quality of care reviews, annual location reviews | No period specified in the Regulations, but they must be kept in an accessible manner | Reg 38 |
Children's case records: 75 years
Regulation 36 requires the registered person to maintain case records for each child, containing the information and documents listed in Schedule 3, kept up to date and signed and dated by the author of each entry.
Those records must then be kept for 75 years from the child's date of birth. Where a child dies before turning 18, the period is 15 years from the date of death instead.
Schedule 3 is broader than many teams assume. Alongside personal details and contact information for the placing authority, parents and social worker, it requires the case record to include:
- The date and circumstances of every occasion the child goes missing from the home, including any information about their whereabouts while absent
- The date and circumstances of any measure of control, discipline or restraint used in relation to the child
- Arrangements for, and any restrictions on, contact between the child, their parents and any other person
- Copies of any EHC plan or statement of special educational needs, every school report received during the placement, the placing authority's care plan and the placement plan
- The dates and outcomes of any review of those plans
- Health information, including GP and dentist details, accidents or serious illness during the placement, immunisations, allergies, medical or dental treatment, and details of any medicines kept for the child, including administration and disposal
- Any money or valuables deposited for safekeeping, with the dates deposited, withdrawn or returned
This matters for retention because it means restraint and missing-from-home information is not free-floating operational data on a 15-year clock. Once it forms part of the child's case record under Schedule 3, it carries the 75-year period. Homes that treat their incident log as a separate short-life record can end up destroying material that Schedule 3 required them to hold.
A common error worth checking in your policy. A number of published retention schedules in the sector state that children's case records are kept for "75 years from the child's 18th birthday". The Regulations say 75 years from the child's date of birth. That is a difference of 18 years. If your retention policy was drafted from a local authority template, it is worth checking which version it uses, and correcting it against regulation 36(2)(b) rather than the template.
Where case records must be held
Regulation 36 also governs location, not just duration. While a child is accommodated at the home, their case records must be kept securely in the home. Once the child has ceased to be accommodated there, the records must be kept in a secure place. The obligation to hold them securely does not end when the placement does.
Schedule 4 records: at least 15 years from the last entry
Regulation 37 covers the records a home keeps about itself rather than about an individual child. These must be maintained in the home, kept up to date, and retained for at least 15 years from the date of the last entry.
The phrase "from the date of the last entry" is doing real work. For a running record such as the register of children or the visitors book, the clock does not start when the record was opened. It starts when the final entry was made. A register in continuous use for a decade begins its 15 years only once it is closed.
| Record | What it must contain |
|---|---|
| Register of children | For each child: date of admission, date they ceased to be accommodated, address immediately before admission, address on leaving, placing authority, and the statutory provision under which they were accommodated |
| Record of people working at the home | Full name, sex, date of birth, home address, qualifications and experience relevant to work with children, whether full or part-time (and average weekly hours if part-time), and whether they reside at the home |
| Duty rosters | A copy of the staff duty roster, and a record of the rosters actually worked |
| Others residing or working at the home | A record of anyone who resides or works at the home at any time who is not already covered by the register of children or the staff record |
| Visitors | All visitors to the home and to children, including names and the reason for each visit |
| Fire drills | Every fire drill and alarm test, any deficiency in procedure or equipment, and the steps taken to remedy it |
| Accounts | Records of all accounts kept in the home |
Note the distinction on staffing. Schedule 4 requires a specific record about each person working at the home, and that record carries the 15-year period. It is not the same thing as the wider HR file, which covers the recruitment evidence required under Schedule 2, supervision notes, appraisals and training records. The Regulations require that information to be available, but do not set a retention period for it.
The records with no stated period
Several important documents are named in regulation 38, which requires them to be kept in an accessible manner, but are given no retention period anywhere in the Regulations. These include:
- The statement of purpose and the children's guide
- The safeguarding, anti-bullying, missing child and behaviour management policies
- The complaints procedure and records of complaints
- The independent person's reports under regulation 44
- Quality of care reviews under regulation 45
- Annual reviews of the appropriateness and suitability of the home's location under regulation 46
The absence of a stated period is not permission to dispose of them quickly. It means the provider must set a defensible period in its own retention policy, informed by other considerations: limitation periods for civil claims (which for a child do not begin to run until they turn 18), the possibility of future safeguarding investigations or inquiries, employment law, HMRC requirements for financial records, and your obligations under UK GDPR.
In practice, many providers align these documents with the 15-year Schedule 4 period as a working floor, and hold anything with a safeguarding dimension for considerably longer. What matters at inspection is that the period is written down, has a stated rationale, and is actually followed, not that it matches any particular number.
Storage, format and access
Regulation 38 is explicit that the listed records and policies may be kept in electronic form, provided they are kept in an accessible manner. There is no requirement to hold paper originals of these items.
"Accessible" is the operative test, and it is where digital records either help or hurt. A system that can produce a specific child's full case record, a closed register from six years ago, or every restraint record for a given month is meeting the requirement comfortably. A shared drive with inconsistent folder naming, or a set of archive boxes in a loft, may technically hold everything and still fail it.
Two further points on access. The independent person carrying out a regulation 44 visit may inspect the home's records, but may only inspect a child's case records with the consent of both the child and their placing authority. And regulation 14 requires the registered person to ensure staff help each child to access and contribute to the records kept about them. Records retention is not only an archival obligation, it is something children have rights over throughout.
What happens to records when a home closes
Regulation 36 sets out specific transfer rules when a home closes or ceases to operate as a children's home, and they are frequently overlooked in closure planning:
- If the registered provider runs one other children's home, the case records transfer to that home.
- If the provider runs more than one other home, the records transfer to whichever is nearest to the closing home.
- If the provider is not, or will not continue to be, the registered provider of another home, the case records for each looked-after child transfer to that child's placing authority.
- For a child who is not looked after and who has an EHC plan or statement of special educational needs, the records transfer to the local authority responsible for that plan; otherwise they transfer to the placing authority.
The obligation sits with the registered provider, and it applies to every child whose records the home holds, not only those resident at the point of closure. If you are planning a closure, a consolidation, or a transfer of registration, mapping where each historic case record will land is worth doing early rather than in the final fortnight.
Retention and UK GDPR
Long retention periods and data protection are sometimes presented as being in tension. In practice they are reconcilable: UK GDPR's storage limitation principle requires that personal data is not kept for longer than necessary, and a statutory duty to retain records is a legitimate basis for keeping them for as long as the law requires.
What the principle does require is deliberateness. A retention policy should state, for each category of record, how long it is held, why, and what happens at the end of that period. Holding everything indefinitely because nobody has decided otherwise is not a defensible position, and neither is destroying material early because storage is inconvenient.
Bear in mind too that a 75-year retention period means these records will very likely outlive the systems they were created in. Anyone requesting their care records decades from now is entitled to a readable, complete file. Format migration and export capability are not administrative details. They are part of meeting the obligation.
Free download: children's home records retention schedule. A one-page reference covering the statutory periods, the Schedule 3 and Schedule 4 categories, and a template for setting your own periods where the Regulations are silent.
Download the retention schedule (PDF)
Building a retention policy that stands up
A workable policy tends to have five things:
- Every category listed, not just the obvious ones. Case records and Schedule 4 records are straightforward. The gaps usually appear around complaints, supervision notes, CCTV, agency staff records and financial records.
- A stated source for each period. Mark each row as either a statutory requirement, with the regulation cited, or a decision your organisation has made, with the reasoning. Inspectors and auditors respond very differently to "regulation 37(2)(c)" than to an unattributed number.
- A named owner and a review date. Regulations change; a policy that has not been looked at since 2015 is a signal in itself.
- A disposal process that is actually recorded. Knowing what you destroyed and when is part of demonstrating the policy is real.
- A plan for the long tail. Records that outlive the placement, the system, and often the home itself need somewhere defined to live.
How OVcare supports record keeping and retention
OVcare is a care management platform built for UK children's homes and supported accommodation providers. It brings case records, daily logs, incident and restraint records, medication records, staff records and rosters into one place, so the information Schedule 3 and Schedule 4 require is captured consistently rather than spread across paper files, spreadsheets and separate systems.
That structure is what makes retention manageable. Records stay attributable and dated, historic files remain retrievable long after a placement ends, and managers can see what exists for each child without reconstructing it from several sources. Where information needs to be exported, whether for a subject access request, a transfer to a placing authority, or a home closure, it can be produced as a complete file rather than assembled by hand.
OVcare does not set your retention policy or replace professional judgement, and no software can guarantee an inspection outcome. What it can do is reduce the administrative burden of record keeping, support clearer audit trails, and help ensure the records you are required to hold are complete, secure and accessible when someone asks for them.
See how your records would sit in one place. Book a free demo and we'll walk through how OVcare handles case records, incident logging and long-term retrieval for your setting. Book a free demo.
Sources: The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/541), regulations 36, 37 and 38 and Schedules 3 and 4, at legislation.gov.uk. Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards, Department for Education.
This guide is provided for general information for care providers and does not constitute legal or regulatory advice. It covers Ofsted-registered children's homes in England; requirements differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for supported accommodation and residential family centres. Always refer to the current Regulations and take professional advice on your own circumstances.
