4.2.2 Deleting members including GDPR compliance

How Long to Keep Records
How long Member Records are kept in Beacon is entirely under the control of the u3a and will usually be managed by the Membership Secretary following the u3a's Data Protection policies.

Financial documents should be retained for at least 6 years plus current financial year. In Beacon, these financial records are recorded in the Ledger and are retained indefinitely. In fact, once a transaction is cleared through the Reconcile process, it is locked and can neither be adjusted nor deleted.

Ledger entries associated with a member (fees, donations, expenses, etc.) should have the member's name in the Transaction (Payee/Payer) along with a link back to the Member Record where their contact details can be found. If the record for a member has been deleted then that link no longer exists so all that remains will be the name of the member.

There is no reason to retain Member Records for a prolonged period of time. How long will depend on a u3a's Data Protection Policy and Privacy Statement and will typically be a year or two.

There obviously needs to be discretion just because a member no longer has the status Current in Beacon. A Lapsed member who is unwell and wishes to remain in touch with the hope of rejoining can clearly be kept on Beacon as long as contact is occasionally maintained. In these circumstances consider removing unnecessary contact data such as a postal address and inform Group Leaders to remove the member from their Group membership lists.

If a member resigns then it would be hard to justify keeping their Member Record after the end of the financial year. This is different for those for whom you claimed Gift Aid on membership fees (see below).

Gift Aid implications

If your u3a operates Gift Aid then your Gift Aid submissions to HMRC need to be kept for six years from the end of a financial year a claim was made. If a member completed a paper consent form then you should retain that for the same period too.

Bear in mind the following points:

• The file submitted to HMRC contains the House and Post Code elements of a member's record so should identify a unique dwelling.
• If a member moves then Beacon will hold the member's current address while the original Gift Aid submission will have a previous address.
• A record of when members have given or withdrawn Gift Aid consent dating back to January 2023 can be viewed in the Gift Aid Log report (see 9.2)

You may want to edit the individual's record to remove data not essential for Gift Aid such as email or telephone number but should the record.

Member added by mistake or never pays
If a member is added by mistake, or a member is added but never pays, then first delete the transaction in the Ledger for their membership fee and then delete their Member Record.

What happens when a Member is Deleted
If sharing an address, the other member is not impacted other than they are no longer sharing an address so are not linked to another Member Record.

Associated Ledger Transactions are retained but without the link to the now-deleted Member Record. The Payee/Payer field is retained.

The Audit Log shows the deletion and until purged should include an address entry with original details.

Deletion Privileges: Note to System Administrators
It is recommended that the privilege to delete members is very tightly limited.

Revision History

v2	2020-06-16	Graham Tigg	Added more information on deleting members - effect on Groups and changed the title. Move duplicate members to a separate article
v3	2021-01-31	Graham Tigg	Clarified a few points and more on Gift Aid records.
v4	2021-04-26	Lyn Bossons	Copied to UG and 4.2.2 added to the title
v5	2021-05-11	Lyn Bossons	The last sentence in the first paragraph on 'Non-gift-aid members' amended in response to the comment below by Marion Clyde.
v6	2022-10-12	Graham Tigg	Added what to do if member added by mistake.
v7	2023-07-18	Graeme Bunting	Advice on retaining Gift Aid records updated
v8	2024-11-25	John Alexander	Made wording on keeping GiftAid linked records more clear.