Code of Practice on Records Access
IICSA · The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · Issued 20 October 2022 · Addressed to: UK Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, K.7
The Inquiry recommends that the UK government directs the Information Commissioner's Office to introduce a code of practice on retention of and access to records known to relate to child sexual abuse. The retention period for records known to relate to allegations or cases of child sexual abuse should be 75 years with appropriate review periods. The code should set out that institutions should have: retention policies that reflect the importance of such records to victims and survivors, and that they may take decades to seek to access such records; clear and accessible procedures for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to access such records; policies, procedures and training for staff responding to requests to ensure that they recognise the long-term impact of child sexual abuse and engage with the applicant with empathy.
IICSA, The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · 20 Oct 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- No published ICO code of practice on retention of and access to records relating to child sexual abuse has been identified to March 2026.
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
We accept the importance of access to records. We will engage with the Information Commissioner’s Office on implementing this recommendation.
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 8 Apr 2025 Directing Information Commissioner's Office to produce code of practice on records retention. Regulations to be laid in Autumn 2025. Source →
- 21 Jan 2025 · Home Affairs Select Committee Professor Alexis Jay told Home Affairs Committee that £187m was spent on IICSA and "to date none of its final recommendations had been implemented." Called for "full implementation" saying "get it done." View source → No Meaningful Progress
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.