Automatically archive records older than 6 years plus current to meet legal IG requirements

Priority ask from Finance that the system automatically archives data older than 6 years + the current year. Specifics of how to control that archiving are to follow after conversations are held with IG. We know it's not acceptable to simply delete the records. Rather they must be wiped or anonymised but a record must be kept of that process having happened. It may be that records are filled with nonsense or blank data but that a secondary audit table logs that "record X has been cleared" for example. This is to satisfy the requirement that we can report on how much and what data has been removed from the system after the event.

Advice from the BMBC Records Manager:

For these types of records and due to the sheer amount that must get created it would be best to fully delete these rather than anonymise. Yes we need to keep logs of what was deleted so we can report on these. If these can be downloadable to store externally that would be an advantage. Yes we would need to log the date the records were deleted, how many records were deleted, the date ranges the records cover, the type of record if possible. Ideally we are not supposed to delete records automatically without sign-off, is this something that could be built into the process somehow?

I've since spoken and confirmed:

It's OK to say that we deleted X records of type A and Y records of type B in a single "audit record" so-to-speak? I'm thinking that when our process runs, it can count up those details and write a single audit record that captures that detail in a narrative.

On the point about having an interface for approvals, we're going to discuss this further as practically that places a demand on Finance teams to manually approve the proces each time it runs. If they don't do it, the IMS builds a backlog of records that should've been archived but haven't been. We think it may be possible to sign off on approvals at a system wide level, on the basis the IMS can be trusted to do the right thing consistently. It removes human error.