Petition to open historic registers

[yecartmannew]

It will be interesting to see what effect this bill has in real life.

Perhaps the GRO will simply say "yes, of course you can have a non certified copy. That will be £9.25 please!" which will in effect be no change at all!

Or am I missing something significant?

[RichardK]

This is good news, but a note of caution. Reading the Deregulation Bill I don't think it grants direct access to the registers, nor does it create any immediate additional right to obtain information from them. For births and deaths it adds to the relevant acts (amongst other provisions):
...
(1) The Minister may make regulations for the purpose of enabling the Registrar General-
(a) to carry out, on request, a search to find out whether the Registrar General's certified copies contain a particular entry;
(b) to provide, on request, a record of information contained in an entry in the Registrar General's certified copies, otherwise than in the form of a certified copy.
(2) The regulations may authorise or require the Registrar General to charge a fee of an amount specified in the regulations for carrying out a search or providing a record.
...

In other words, there is no immediate change at midnight. All that has become legal is for the Minister at some future point to publish some regulations increasing access. The bill doesn't stipulate that the Minister should do this - it merely becomes lawful for him or her to do so. If such regulations are made, that access will be in the form of a new search service for which there will be a charge, from which the results will be given in a form other than the traditional certificates.

For marriages and civil partnerships the bar is set slightly higher - it has to be the Secretary of State rather than the Minister who makes the regulations, the regulations have to be a statutory instrument, and they can only be prepared after consultation with the Registrar General.

Therefore whilst this is a step in the right direction it isn't necessarily going to be quick, and it won't be free (I do hope they don't make it £9.25!)
Richard.

[andycand]

Hi

I seem to recall that, in response to an FOI request, the GRO said that using plain paper would only be a few pence cheaper than the currently used certificate forms.
 
Email is another possibility but it wouldn't be any cheaper as a certificate is not created until the printing stage, a scan of the Register entry is printed on a pre-printed blank certificate, that certificate would then need to be scanned in order to email it.

A system similar to that in Scotland would be great but would cost many millions of pounds to set up.

Andy

   

[Guy Etchells]

This is good news, but a note of caution. Reading the Deregulation Bill I don't think it grants direct access to the registers, nor does it create any immediate additional right to obtain information from them. For births and deaths it adds to the relevant acts (amongst other provisions):
...
(1) The Minister may make regulations for the purpose of enabling the Registrar General-
(a) to carry out, on request, a search to find out whether the Registrar General's certified copies contain a particular entry;
(b) to provide, on request, a record of information contained in an entry in the Registrar General's certified copies, otherwise than in the form of a certified copy.
(2) The regulations may authorise or require the Registrar General to charge a fee of an amount specified in the regulations for carrying out a search or providing a record.
...

In other words, there is no immediate change at midnight. All that has become legal is for the Minister at some future point to publish some regulations increasing access. The bill doesn't stipulate that the Minister should do this - it merely becomes lawful for him or her to do so. If such regulations are made, that access will be in the form of a new search service for which there will be a charge, from which the results will be given in a form other than the traditional certificates.

For marriages and civil partnerships the bar is set slightly higher - it has to be the Secretary of State rather than the Minister who makes the regulations, the regulations have to be a statutory instrument, and they can only be prepared after consultation with the Registrar General.

Therefore whilst this is a step in the right direction it isn't necessarily going to be quick, and it won't be free (I do hope they don't make it £9.25!)
Richard.

I note you miss out
"(4) The Registrar General may charge such fees as appropriate in relation to making and delivering a copy of a record which is not a certified copy, but such a fee shall be no more than £3.00 per record."

In addition for the last 114 years Registrars General have been claiming the only obstacle blocking the way of their providning uncertified copies of BMD entries is the law does not specifically say they may provide uncertified copies.
From midnight on the 25th March changes in the law specifically state the Registrar Genral may supply such copies.
In other words the only block to uncertified copies has been removed.

I don't doubt the Registrar General and the GRO will now dream up other excuses, which is why we have not dropped the campaign to open historic registers.The focus has now changed from targetting MPs and Members of the House of Lords (which has been successful) to now targetting the Registrar General, the GRO and the Home Office Ministers.

As to your point it does not grant direct access to the registers, no one has claimed it does, but it does remove the only block to receiving uncertified copies of entries at a reasonable price.

As I stated earlier I foresee the initial price to be the same as a certificate but once the tendering process is conculded and the entries can be supplied dgitally the price could drop to the £3.00p level or even below that.

Cheers
Guy

[yecartmannew]

That is even better news. I can't wait untill they are available for £3 or less!

[sirsimon]

What's the status on this amendment as of January 2016? I have heard little about it since its proposal.

I am looking for a lot of information that is only available from the certificates from the gro, it would save everyone immense amounts of money if we were able to get the information for less than the current 9.25

[Beeonthebay]

What's the status on this amendment as of January 2016? I have heard little about it since its proposal.

I am looking for a lot of information that is only available from the certificates from the gro, it would save everyone immense amounts of money if we were able to get the information for less than the current 9.25

£3 a pop would be heaven!!!  Any updates on this Guy? 

[Guy Etchells]

The latest information I have been given is that officials from the GRO are looking for ways to introduce change taking into account various considerations e.g. financial, legal, technical, impact on local authority budgets etc.

In other words they are doing what they claim to have been doing for the last 100 years.
In practice it seems they are delaying any chance of change for as long as possible.

Until there is a swell of public anger against these delaying tactics nothing will be done for the next 100 years.

There will be no change until people start writing and emailing the GRO asking why since the Registrars General since the start of the 20th century have been looking at ways to open the registers to the public is it taking so long to produce uncertified copies on register entries, this question should also be asked of every member of the House of Lords.
These two actions can be done by every person in the world not just people who live in the UK.

UK residents should email and mail their MP asking why the change is taking so long seeing as if we believe what we have been told over the last 100 years systems are in place to effect the change.
 
Until now they claimed the only block was legislation.
The legislation has been clarified yet still the GRO officials are making excuses.

When the Registrar General in 1974 decided to put an end to public searches in registers held by Superintendent Registrars they did that overnight.
If that can be done overnight with no regard to the consequences allowing the public to purchase uncertified copies of register entries can also be done quickly.

Royal Asset to the Deregulation Act was announced on 26 March 2015 in the House of Lords witnessed by members of the House of Commons, 9 months have passed and still we are no further forward.

Until the GRO and just as importantly Members of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords find their mailboxes filled with questions about this every day nothing will ever be done.

Cheers
Guy

[cassie18]

Many years ago I was needing to look at the last census which was nit then available. I read somewhere that you could apply and be given only the minimum info. I wrote in and gave my reasons stating that I was his next of kin etc and was given enough information that helped me at the time. If they can do this then they should change the rules so we can look say after 70 yrs. 50 would be even better but that will never happen.