EPR - Record-Keeping Guidelines

Audits of the EPR process in December 2010 and April 2011 found that, in the main, EPR records were well-maintained and ordered. However there were areas where this was not the case.

Accordingly a record-keeping guideline has been developed – simple guidance as to what the standard for good record maintenance should be.

Future EPR audits will look at both a selection of EPR records and to what degree local EPR record-keeping complies with the following guidelines.

The EPR record-keeping guideline is as follows:

1) There should be clear evidence of EPR forms being held centrally (within a given team, school, department or RI) in a lockable filing system. This could be one centrally-held set of files for the entire team, or sub-sets held by each reviewer.

2) Electronic versions of EPR forms should be held securely (i.e. not on an open “S” drive).

3) There should be evidence of a process in place locally to ensure that EPR form maintenance is a) actively managed (meaning up-to-date, completed forms are maintained), and b) a process in place to chase-up (in a defined timescale) forms missing or late.

4)        A responsible person (typically the reviewer or a designated administrative deputy) should be able to demonstrate, when asked, that all EPR forms are present (either centrally or dispersed).

5)        There will be instances where the manager of a given team is not the reviewer of someone in their team. However there must be evidence that the team manager has both sight of, and active input to, the EPR forms and process for both objective-setting and reviews, preferably by collaborative working with the person who is the reviewer.

6) A mechanism for oversight (at team, school, department or RI level) of agreed employee objectives should be in place to ensure consistency and alignment to school /department plans