Engagement file

A social impact assessment does not end when the report is handed over. The assessor also has to keep proof of the work behind it, and that proof has a name: the engagement file.

The workbook's own words: the assessor should assemble engagement documentation "in an engagement file (whether maintained in hard copy or soft copy)" and complete this "on a timely basis, usually not more than 60 days after the date of the social impact assessment report."

Once assembled, the file cannot simply be thrown away. The workbook says the assessor "should not delete or discard engagement documentation of any nature before the end of its retention period."

The engagement file sits under section 5.11.1 (Documentation) of the workbook's assessor obligations. Its purpose is to provide a record sufficient to understand three things:

1. The nature, timing and extent of the procedures the assessor performed to comply with the assessment framework.
2. The results of those procedures and the evidence obtained.
3. Significant issues observed during the engagement, and recommendations for future improvement.

Two timing rules govern it:

The workbook does not fix a specific retention period in years — it states only that documentation must survive until that period ends, whatever it is set at. The 60-day figure applies to assembly, not to how long the file must eventually be kept.

Illustrative dates.

A social impact assessor issues a report on 15 March. Under the 60-day rule, the assessor must complete assembling the final engagement file by 14 May — pulling together field notes, sampling records, interview transcripts and the analysis working papers into one file, whether kept as physical folders or as a structured digital archive.

Six months later, a funder disputes one of the report's conclusions and asks to see supporting evidence. Because the engagement file was properly assembled and its retention period has not lapsed, the assessor can retrieve the specific interview records and sampling notes behind the disputed conclusion — rather than having to explain that the underlying documentation was never organised, or was discarded too early.

Chapter 5, section 5.11.1 (Documentation), sets out the engagement file requirement immediately after the five elements of a social impact assessment engagement. Expect a question on the assembly deadline (60 days from the report date) and on what documentation must never be discarded before its retention period ends.

• 60 days is the deadline to assemble the file, not a retention period. The workbook does not state a specific number of years documentation must be kept — only that it must not be discarded before that period ends.
• The file may be hard copy or soft copy — the workbook does not mandate one format over the other.
• The engagement file exists to evidence procedures, results and significant issues — not merely to store the final report itself.
• Do not confuse this with the audit trail, a required component of the report that documents which stakeholders and indicators were included or excluded and why — the engagement file is the broader documentation record; the audit trail is one specific piece of content the report itself must contain.