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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1201-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE REGULATORY REFORM COMMITTEE
Tuesday 26 October 2004 MS SANDRA HOWELL and MS JULIE HOLE MS ELSE CHURCHILL, MR RICHARD RATCLIFFE and MR GEOFF RIGGS MR NICK KINGSLEY and MS KATIE NORGROVE Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 84
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Regulatory Reform Committee on Tuesday 26 October 2004 Members present Mr Peter Pike, in the Chair Mr Dai Havard Mr Mark Lazarowicz Mr John MacDougall Dr Doug Naysmith Brian White
Dr Brian Iddon (attending the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 141(13)) ________________ Memoranda submitted by UNISON and the Society of Registration Officers
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Ms Sandra Howell, National Officer, UNISON and Ms Julie Hole, Society of Registration Officers, examined.
Chairman: Good morning, can I welcome you to the Committee and can I also welcome Dr Brian Iddon, who is a Member of the House, who has just joined us. It is a right of Members to do this and I can tell you he is the first Member to actually exercise that right in the history of the Committee. You are very welcome this morning. Dr Iddon (attending the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 141(13)): Thank you, Chairman. Q1 Chairman: For the benefit of the witnesses, you understand the nature of the job this Committee has to do, we have to see whether we consider the proposals as being appropriate and we have a number of criteria we have to judge it by in the legislation. Will you introduce yourselves for the sake of the record? You have made a written submission but if you want to make any very brief opening comments, do so, and then we will go into questions because we are a little bit tight on time, as you will understand. Ms Howell: My name is Sandra Howell, I am a National Officer for UNISON, and UNISON represents staff working in the civil registration services in England and Wales, including registrars and superintendent registrars. We support the Government's measures contained in the Regulatory Reform Order to modernise civil registration in England and Wales. We believe the draft Order has not taken appropriate account of adequate consultation on employment rights for registrars regarding their transfer to local government employment. We outline this point in our response to the Registration Review and this is not reflected in the draft Order. UNISON and the Society of Registration Officers have complained for many years for employee status for registrars, which could have been implemented by an Order under s23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, so we welcome the draft Order which would give registrars full employee rights and status by transferring them to local government employment. However, we believe that the draft Order does not continue the necessary protection of employment rights under TUPE, that is the Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment regulations. This is because the Order does not give registrars the same employment rights and protection during transfer that all local authority employees enjoy under TUPE. With the minor amendments set out in our submission to this Committee, registrars would have the same TUPE employment protection which all local authority employees have when being transferred to a new employer. This includes continuity of employment protection, enabling registrars who have worked in different jobs in other local authorities before becoming registration officers to have continuous employment protection for those years of service. I refer you to amendment 2 of our submission. Also protection from dismissal by reason of the transfer which could be held automatically unfair, as it is under TUPE legislation, and I refer you to amendment 4 of our submission. Q2 Chairman: I think some of these will come out in the questioning. Shall we move on to the questions? Ms Howell: Could I just finish with a few other points. We do not want any delay in providing registrars with full employee status. We believe that if this Committee recommends these minor amendments to the draft Order to Government, registrars would have the same employment rights during transfer as exist for all local government employees being transferred to a new employer under TUPE. Thank you. Q3 Chairman: You are from UNISON and Julie is from SORO? Ms Hole: That is right, yes. Q4 Chairman: If we could first concentrate on the employment issues and then move on to the other aspects and spend a few minutes on those. Obviously we understand the concern from the union on the issues you have raised. You are saying you believe there should be a consultation requirement in the proposal because of the points you are making, but what type of consultation process have you actually got in mind? Who would carry it out, and how would it differ from the consultation which has already taken place during the preparation of the proposals we are now considering? Ms Howell: In terms of the Order itself, I was referring to the same consultation rights as exist in TUPE --- Q5 Chairman: Sorry, I did not let Julie say a few opening words. Answer the question and if Julie wants to say anything in opening, she can. I apologise for that. Ms Howell: I was referring to the same consultation rights which exist in TUPE legislation, which is Regulation 10. This basically would require the registration authority to consult the registrars and their employee representatives on the impact of the transfer and any action envisaged. Q6 Chairman: Julie, I am sorry I did not let you make any opening comments. Is there anything you wish to say at this stage? Ms Hole: I will be very brief. I am Julie Hole, I am the National Public Relations Officer for the Society of Registration Officers, the practitioners' consultative and representative body. The Society fully endorses the views expressed by UNISON and are supportive of the reforms as a whole, but there are areas which cause us particular concerns. We feel the proposed changes which will affect every level of society are so wide-ranging and immense that a more transparent legislative route would have been preferable. It has been very difficult for both practitioners and members of the public to understand and absorb the mass of information required to make a meaningful response to the consultation. Whole areas were precluded from the consultation, including the transitional arrangements which will last about ten years. The IT procurement exercise, one of the largest undertaken by Her Majesty's Government, has already begun, before the legislation has been passed, and we were informed the framework for changes, including a national call centre, would not be the subject for debate. We know the system needs to reform but the measures proposed should have been fully debated in Parliament to raise the public's awareness. Q7 Chairman: I am going to ask some questions and if either of you wish to come in, by all means do so. On the consequences, and I am sure you will not be concerned about the beneficial consequences, if there are detrimental consequences, and you have covered some of this in your opening comments, what do you see in the longer-term for the current employees within the registration service who are now going to be transferred into local government? What detrimental things do you see there? Ms Howell: The detrimental issue for them is, if the Order is passed as it is, there may be the possibility that registration officers do not fully consult with them on any changes which will occur as a result of the transfer, including any changes to terms and conditions of employment. There may also be a lack of consultation on any changes to their working practices and jobs as a result of modernisation, and it would be very useful for employees to be involved in any consultation on changes to their working practices. Q8 Chairman: So you do not think the necessary protection for the workers will actually be there if it is not written into the proposal? Ms Howell: Unfortunately not. TUPE legislation exists to protect staff who have been transferred over to new employees. I know registration officers are statutory officers, which is why this transfer is being written into the Order, and that is why we want TUPE-like protection for registration officers which at the moment does not exist. Q9 Chairman: How do you consider the fact that local authorities are going to have closer managerial control over local registration services? Do you think that will in the long-term have positive consequences for the local delivery of service rather than conditions of employment? Ms Howell: I think it will. That is a proposal that we absolutely support, particularly as most of our local authority representatives and members have direct management control by local authorities, and it is very useful to ensure they have that control and they have that input and relationship with the employees. Q10 Dr Naysmith: Good morning. At the moment registrars have a kind of unusual position in which they are legally separate, and they do not have managerial accountability to anyone apart from right at the top. Do you not think that gives a certain measure of protection for you in the transfer, that you are protected already by the fact you are legally independent? This is probably for Julie. Ms Hole: As you quite rightly say, we only answer to the top, the Registrar General, however should we be dismissed for any reason - usually a technical issue - only the Registrar General can dismiss us and the only right of appeal we have is to the Registrar General, which does not afford us the same protection as other employees have. Q11 Dr Naysmith: What effect do you think that has on the registration process itself, the fact you are independent and not run by local authorities? Do you think you might lose something valuable by this change? Ms Hole: There is a fear within Registration, within the practitioners, that we might lose some of the accuracy and the integrity of the service if it is governed by 172 local authorities. Even though there will be national standards, there will be diversity. Q12 Dr Naysmith: You are not 100 per cent sure that this is the right thing to do? Ms Hole: Yes. We are fully aware that reforms need to be made to the service. Q13 Dr Naysmith: But you still think that there is a little bit of doubt about the service. Ms Hole: Yes. Not all local authorities will run the service with integrity. Q14 Chairman: Sandra, would you like to comment on that? Ms Howell: We are fully supportive of the transfer and the modernisation process. As Julie has already referred to, registrars do not have any employment rights, at the moment, because they are not employees, they are statutory officers. For example, they cannot take any cases to the employment tribunals, so we are fully supportive of this transfer. Q15 Dr Naysmith: That is fairly similar to general practitioners in the National Health Service. They have not done too badly, have they? Ms Hole: We do not get paid as much as they do! Q16 Dr Naysmith: That is another matter. If this change takes place, and you say something is going to happen, what do you think the affect on the quality of advice that registrars currently offer to people who come along and want to register various things will be? Ms Hole: Registrars are the frontline service, especially when someone has lost a relative. Very often, they act as a bereavement counsellor, unofficially giving advice and support to those who are bereaved. In the case of birth registrations, when parents are unmarried we are able to give advice to a father who chooses to register the birth with the mother on his rights and responsibilities as a parent. We feel that should this be taken away from the face-to-face registration to on-line or remote registration in anyway whatsoever, we will not be able to give advice and support to those who attend our office. Q17 Mr Lazarowicz: On that point, do you see any role for centrally run registration services for the future of the service, or do you think, inevitably, there is going to be an affect on the quality of the service offered to informants? Ms Hole: We think there is bound to be an affect on the quality of service. Q18 Mr Lazarowicz: A detrimental affect? Ms Hole: Yes. There is bound to be. We are the experts in our field and we feel that while we agree with through records and there being a national database, what we do not agree with is a national call centre. Registrations could be perfectly well effected in local registration districts, where they are able to give local advice and information by trained registration staff. Chairman: Doug, would you like to ask another question? Q19 Dr Naysmith: It has partly been answered. At the moment, we have got face-to-face registration services, do you see any adverse effects - it has been answered in terms of advice - or any other benefits of the availability of face-to-face registration being lost under the proposed national internet, for example, or telephone registration services? Do you think that will make a difference to these kinds of services other than what we talked about? Ms Hole: No. I think it gives the public a choice in how they can effect a registration and choice is important. At the moment, they are disadvantaged by having to go to a local office. I think the public do need choice, and in the future the choice will be taken up far more than it is now by our children and our children's children. Q20 Brian White: At the moment, one of the advantages is that when you fill a form in you have the advice of the registrar if you have any questions. Do you think the new ways, registering call centres and over the internet, can be made sufficiently simple that straightforward cases can go that route or do you see any concerns that quality will diminish? Ms Hole: Straightforward registrations will be no problem at all. I believe it is when there is a difficulty that they will be referred back to the local practitioner. Q21 Brian White: There will be procedures to identify the more complex cases that the person registering will not be aware of? Ms Hole: Yes. There will be. Q22 Brian White: You mentioned that you are unhappy about the consultations. Can you add any experience that you may have about this consultation by the ONS, and in your view, what account should have been taken of the consultation when framing this proposal? What was your experience of the consultation proposal? Ms Hole: I am sure that one of the members would have read the 290 page consultation document, the proposal for change and the 328 page explanatory document on the Order. These documents were very unwieldy and very difficult to absorb. I do not feel that true consultation was carried out as it would have been had it been a more open process because people are just not bothering to sit down and read them and I think the replies would have been very limited. Q23 Chairman: If there had been the normal legislative procedure, do you think you would you have got better scrutiny? Ms Hole: Yes, I do. Q24 Brian White: Was there a summary produced or anything like that? Ms Hole: Yes, there was a summary produced, but again, these were rather large documents and unless you had a real interest in them you were not going to read them. Members of the public are not going to bother unless they have an interest. Q25 Brian White: So the only responses we would have received would have been from the anoraks in the user service or professionals involved in the system? Ms Hole: I am sure that there are some members of the public, anoraks if you wish, who would have read the document and some who would have responded. Q26 Brian White: At the moment, what else do you think needs to be taken into account? What do you think is missing from the consultation? Ms Hole: Nothing that I am aware of. Q27 Dr Naysmith: We understand that the Office of National Statistics would like to restrict the issuing to the public of paper birth certificates as much as possible. Have you any views on just how far we can go and how desirable it is to go down that route by providing an entirely electronic process? Ms Hole: We believe that joined-up government is the way forward. However, I feel the public will not like this. They do want to go away with a piece of paper that means something, not just a commemorative certificate. They want to know that the paper they have is worth something and not just something to stick on their wall. Q28 Dr Naysmith: It is a bit wider than that, is it not? We use our birth certificates for all sorts of things; insurance companies will want to see them and that kind of thing. Will that feasibly be replaced by what is proposed? Ms Hole: I suppose, if the company is high-tech enough and if the insurance company is high-tech enough, then they will be able to ask for the record to be checked. If it is a small bank or a small insurance company, then they will need a paper certificate. It will have to be a certificate that has some standing and not just something pretty. Q29 Dr Naysmith: In order for this to go into effect properly, it is going to require other bodies to get involved as well? Ms Hole: Yes. Insurance companies, banks, building societies and even schools, where parents require a certificate for their child to be able to take part in games, are going to be a part of this. It is going to have such a wide reaching effect, right down to the smallest level. Q30 Chairman: Julie, I asked you a question a moment ago as to whether you thought you would have got better scrutiny under the normal method of scrutiny. This is an issue where we have to decide whether it is appropriate for it to be done in this way. We are not a fast-track for legislation, we are a second-track, an alternative track. Some people would say that sometimes, we enable the Government to do something earlier because they cannot get it on to a Bill, but, in fact, it is given more scrutiny by this method than the normal method if it was tagged on. For example, in some cases, not specifically in this case, where it is tagged on as a couple of clauses within a Bill, it might get virtually no consideration at all. Have you got worries about it when looking at it? Ms Hole: You mean about it going through this, the Regulatory Reform Order? Q31 Chairman: Yes. Ms Hole: Yes. It is not transparent enough for members of the public. We meet with members of the public every single day and those people are totally unaware of the most major changes in the Births and Deaths Civil Registration Act for many years. They are completely unaware of it and we, as practitioners, feel that is grossly unfair. Q32 Chairman: I put it to you that your other alternatives would be that it could be left on one side for some time because of the Government's programme or, alternatively, it could be tagged on to a Bill where it might not get all that much attention, if it was a minor part of another Bill. I do not know what it would be doing, but do you really believe it would get better public scrutiny? Ms Hole: I would have to consider that question. Obviously we would not want it to be delayed any length of time because of our employment status. Q33 Chairman: I am being devil's advocate. Ms Hole: I know you are. Q34 Chairman: We have to try and do our job, and we take very seriously what is laid down within the Act. We in no way consider ourselves, and I speak for all my colleagues, to be a rubber stamp, because I do not think we have ever approved any proposal without some amendment or some change. So we do try to do the job very seriously. Are there any points you really think when we are publishing our report - and you know that is sometime towards the end of the month, we do not know exactly because we are not sure how long Parliament will be prorogued and that affects the number of days we have available - we should be recommending to the Government which you feel you want to go ahead which you feel we have not taken note of yet? Ms Howell: To repeat what I said, in conclusion we would like the Committee to recommend the amendments we have already put forward in our submission. Chairman: I was going to ask Dr Iddon. You spoke to me about this issue long before it actually appeared before us. Are there any points you would like to raise which you feel we have not covered? Any questions you would like to ask? Dr Iddon (attending the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 141(13)): If I may briefly underline that this is the first major reform of this service since it was set up in the 19th century, around 1862, and I have been calling for a public debate on the floor of the main chamber, Chairman, because I thought the general public should be aware of this major change and it is not. In fact, the majority of Members of Parliament are not even aware this change is occurring. I think it has been disappointing we have not had a debate about the process. Nevertheless, it is a vital change and, as you have heard, we do not want to stop the legislation proceeding. I think the main point is we would like the RRO amendment to protect the employment rights of the registration officers during the transition period, because the fear is that some local authorities, the worst local authorities - and there are some - would take advantage of shedding staff during the transition period. Whilst there is a statement of practice from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on staff transfers where TUPE is not applicable, this advice is not statutory, and I think the registration officers would be happier if the RRO was amended to protect their employment rights during the transition period. One of my concerns, and I know it is one of SORO's concerns, is that the consistency of the service is maintained nationally. There are variations in the service now, for example, the different charges of room hire vary enormously. In some local authorities the cost of hiring a room for a wedding, for example, is exorbitant compared with others. There is not a lot we can do about that but at least we ought to have minimum standards, and I think minimum standards for the operation of the service when it is transferred completely to local authorities, including the employment of the statutory officers, is an important point. I also, finally, underline the point about paper certificates. I think people more widely should have been consulted about the loss of the paper certificates, although I do realise the process has to be made much more efficient by going on-line. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman: Can I say, as I said to you privately last week, that I see no reason why you should still not press for a debate on the floor of the House, to be making the point to the Leader of the House that you feel it would be appropriate for Members of the House to have an opportunity of discussing the issues involved before we have completed our procedure. But I am not one who has influence with the Leader of the House or the Chief Whip, so that is a line you should pursue. Does any member have any other points? Q35 Mr Havard: Sorry to be late, Chairman. Can I ask one question? There seems to be some discussion about people not being aware, not being involved, but from what I gather there was a consultation exercise done. We are informed this consultation exercise was a quality product. How were you involved in that exercise? How is it then that people have not understood that this was under discussion if there was such a consultation process? Ms Hole: If I can reiterate, the consultation process was very unwieldy, there were documents of nearly 300 pages to disseminate and absorb. As this gentleman over here said, you have to have a great interest in registration to be reading that document and to respond to it. Leaflets were made available in libraries and in local registration offices and local authority offices and given out with every certificate which went out from ONS. However, people would have to request the consultation document in order to read it through, it just had bullet points in it, and how many members of the public would be doing that? I would rather watch Coronation Street than do that! Q36 Mr Havard: Okay, it is a choice. I am not sure it is one I would make but I take the point about doing something else. I am not sure about Coronation Street. So it is the profile of the debate. I have reservations myself about how this particular exercise connects with a lot of other things which are happening in the whole area of identity fraud and everything else, and we have concerns about how joined-up the Government support might be. But this is a single aspect related to a broader agenda, so do you feel, as perhaps Dr Iddon does, there might be a broader discussion putting it in its proper context? Ms Hole: Absolutely. It needs to be much more transparent, although we do agree with the reforms proposed. Q37 Chairman: I have to move on but are there are points which you feel you have not made which you would wish to have made? Ms Hole: Can I just make one small point very quickly? We would like to make the point that local registration service providers are ideally placed to accept telephone registrations made directly to them and not just through a national call centre. Q38 Brian White: If the national call centre basically was one telephone system but linked through to local officers, you would not be opposed to that, would you? Ms Hole: No, not if it was linked to local offices. Q39 Chairman: Can I thank you for coming along and giving us your evidence which has been useful. If you do think of something when you have gone away and you think, "I should have said that", do write into our officials as soon as possible, because we will consider any points you want to put forward. Ms Hole: Thank you very much. Ms Howell: Thank you. Memorandum submitted by Federation of Family History Societies
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Richard Ratcliffe, Legislation Liaison Officer, Ms Else Churchill, Genealogy Officer, Society of Genealogists and Mr Geoff Riggs, Trustee, Federation of Family History Societies, examined. Q40 Chairman: Is Mr Ratcliffe in charge? Mr Ratcliffe: I believe so, Sir. Q41 Chairman: Can I welcome you here. You have heard the first session of evidence, so I will not repeat everything I said then, but if you want to introduce your team and make any brief opening comments and say what your organisation is and what your interests are, then we will move on to questions. Mr Ratcliffe: Thank you very much, Sir. My name is Richard Ratcliffe, I am former chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies and now I am Legislation Liaison Officer and I have been involved in family history for over 20 years. On my left is Ms Else Churchill, who is also representing the Federation today, and she is Genealogy Officer for the Society of Genealogists. On my right Mr Geoff Riggs, who is a member of the Federation's executive and who has a particular interest in Welsh matters on this particular subject. We do not wish to make an opening statement because we have already sent in submissions to you. We are here to answer questions. Q42 Chairman: Your submission was very helpful to us. Mr Riggs: If I may add a rider to that. One of the areas I hope you will be coming to later is the area of data capture. I am a former Vice Chairman of the Federation and currently Director of Computer and Internet Facilities. Q43 Chairman: Thank you very much. Can you please give an indication of your view on the process of reforming civil registration as developed so far and what you feel about the consultation exercise? Mr Ratcliffe: First of all, we welcome the fact that a lot of previous Acts are now being brought together under this Regulatory Reform Order. It is a case of bringing things which have been happening since 1837 together and making things up to date. We welcome that. We are concerned though that there are a number of proposals in the document which need considerable and detailed consideration. First of all, can I mention that we feel that the plan to digitise records, at the moment, is extremely vague. In fact, a lot of the documents in sections 20 and 21 are very vague, both for historic and modern records. The documents give no information at all about the digitisation of historic records, that is, those records that it proposes which are more than 75 years old. We are very concerned about the future of those records and what is likely to happen to them. The only commitment is that there will be funding to digitise records back to 1993, that is mandatory in the document, but before 1993 it is extremely vague and there are no figures whatsoever about the funding and what will be available for this exercise to be carried out. Q44 Chairman: Noting the points that you have made, do you feel that the consultation has been adequate? Do you believe, having heard what I said about our system of Regulatory Reform Orders, as opposed to the normal legislation, it is right that it should be dealt with in this way? Ms Churchill: Given that genealogists have been trying to be consulted about access to the civil-registration records since 1913, we felt this was a remarkable improvement. We were informed throughout the process and we have an active genealogical community who managed to précis the document, so it was digestible, and to look at the points that we felt were important to our genealogical community. We sent 2,300 responses to your consultation; I am not the sure what the average number to your consultation is generally for a Regulatory Reform Order but I am sure that it is a lot larger than you have had before. We think we have made it widely available to our community and we have a very efficient communication system. We were pleased that we were consulted and we have tried to make the information as obvious to the public, on how it would affect them, as we could. Q45 Brian White: Obviously, you have got a direct interest in this. How do you think this is going to help or hinder people trying to trace their family history? Ms Churchill: We hope it will help by finally making material available from a distance, quicker and easier. We welcome on-line access because that is clearly the way our community wants to go. All the institutions involved in genealogical services are looking at distance accessibility. We think it will hinder the process because you are taking some information away from us that is clearly of vital use for those involved in family history research, and we feel that some of the burdens have been placed more on the genealogical community. We have made our opinion known, but we have not necessarily had all of our points taken into consideration and we feel there is some compromise there. Generally, anything that makes these records more widely available and cheaper has got to be good for us. Mr Ratcliffe: The Federation is an educational charity and one of our prime aims is to promote accuracy of research and make sure that people, when they are tracing their family tree, do get accurate information. In fact, restricting some of the information, which is proposed in the Order, could hinder people getting fully accurate information about their family trees, particularly if they are starting off. Just to give you an example of how popular it is: the present BBC series which started a fortnight ago, the first programme, attracted 5.7 million viewers. You have a large amount of the public who are interested in this, and we are a small cog trying to promote accurate research and trying to make sure that people do get an accurate family tree, not a fictitious one, at the end of their endeavours. Q46 Brian White: Would the BBC programme have been able to do what it is doing if these changes had been in place? Mr Ratcliffe: No. I think it would have restricted them because they would not have been able to have, for example, the cause of death on a death certificate. They would not have had the information on a birth certificate of the place of birth, because often the place of birth is different from the address where the family was living. This could stifle quite a lot of the research which is vital at the beginning when people are setting out on this exciting adventure to trace their family history. Q47 Brian White: One of the most specialist areas is people who have been adopted and are trying to trace their natural families. Obviously, that is a concern. Will this impact on that area? Ms Churchill: Significantly, I would have thought. In many ways, modern research is reliant on having the information on where the parents may have been living and their occupations. These are not being taken away, but you take the whole body of the information that you have got and try to work out, for modern research, who the person is that you are dealing with. While we know there are other consultation processes and forms to look at the accessibility to adoption records, I am not sure that they have been quite easily joined up together in these two processes. Q48 Dr Naysmith: This raises an interesting area of where there is a lot of room for argument. What you are saying is that the right to freedom of information is more important than the right to privacy? Ms Churchill: We accept that, of course, there has to be a balance. At the moment, we think that balance is still slightly tipped too heavily. We are not quite sure how a 74-year-old address can cause too much of a problem with data protection issues of privacy. Q49 Dr Naysmith: What about the situation where someone has expressly said that something held in the register should be kept private and they do not want it to be freely available? Ms Churchill: I think there are times when people interact with the state and use the information, for example, birth certificates, as forms of identification. You mentioned earlier on that there might be different issues, such as identity fraud, but, I think, there has to be some kind of openness about who you are and some kind of identity for yourself and for your descendants as well. Q50 Dr Naysmith: Your assumption is that it is always a good thing that other people are able to delve into your family background. That cannot be right, can it? Ms Churchill: In my 22 years' of experience, on the whole, I see most people getting benefits out of finding out who they are, and about their relationships within the community and with family. For the majority of people, I have seen it to be beneficial. Q51 Dr Naysmith: There are people who are interested in this sort of thing and I am sure the great majority never get involved in it. Maybe some of them are quite happy that the information related to them is not publicly available. Mr Riggs: Genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the country and it is the second most popular and accessed subject on the internet. Q52 Dr Naysmith: What is the most popular? Mr Riggs: Pornography is the most popular. Q53 Dr Naysmith: I thought fishing was. Mr Riggs: Genealogy is the second most popular subject. Q54 Mr Naysmith: You are quite happy with the situation? Ms Churchill: Certainly, and we see that there has to be a balance involved. No one is advocating that all family historians have rights over everybody but at the moment we think it has tipped slightly against our favour. Q55 Mr Naysmith: The ONS, the Office of National Statistics, has said that it believes that the proposals, taken as a whole, will result in an overall improvement in the accessibility of registration records of the public. That is not quite what you are saying. What do you think about what they are saying? Ms Churchill: We have reservations about issues of accessibility, particularly with regard to having access to local records. I will reiterate what we said earlier on. We want to see a consistency of service in local access to records, because we have problems with accuracy. We feel that access through the database should be through prime historical source material, and that prime historical source material is the local record and not the second duplicated copy held by the Registrar General. In any process where you have a transcription of the record ,Chinese whispers will occur and there will be errors. We would look for guarantees of accuracy and quality as high as you can get. I realise it is never going to be 100 per cent, but an on-line database for modern and historical records will make records easier to access and much cheaper than it is at the moment. We have always advocated that genealogists do not need a legal certified copy, we just need the data. We see no reason why we have had to pay for them, particularly the green, black and yellow official documents. Anything that makes that information more accessible and cheaper has got to benefit the genealogical community as a whole. Q56 Dr Naysmith: You have answered my next question. Having dealt with the disadvantages, I was going to ask you what the main advantages are for you in the current proposals, and you are saying cheapness and availability of information if it is available in electronic form. Ms Churchill: Cheapness and availability but our overriding concern is accuracy. Mr Ratcliffe: Can I say that we are particularly concerned about accessibility as explained in the document. It is far too vague at the moment as to what kind of public access there will be if this Order goes through, and the Federation is particularly anxious that the local registrars' records are considered the prime source rather than the copy records at ONS, because there is evidence that records have got lost in the post in the past by being sent on from the registrars to Somerset House originally and ONS now. Also what kind of access will there be to the original historical records if the Order goes through. Will it be at a registrar's office, will it be in a county record office or elsewhere, because these places do not have the storage facilities or the staffing to manage these records. Of course, the preservation and conservation of these records is equally very important as well. Q57 Mr Lazarowicz: What would you say to the suggestion that the proposals to modernise the service in this way should only be brought forward after the detailed arrangements for the construction of the data base and the digitisation of records have been fully developed and agreed? Is this taking things in the wrong order? Mr Riggs: I think it is, but the Regulatory Reform Order says that no decision has yet been taken as to whether it should be central records or local records, it will be based on cost and practicability. Despite that, as we heard from Julie Hole in the earlier evidence, a dialogue has been started between the ONS and the potential suppliers, and part of that dialogue is that it has already been admitted that it is cheaper and more practical to do central records, despite what the Regulatory Reform Order says. That dialogue is a public record on the internet, on the GO website, but far from describing aspects there it seems the historic records will take second place to the modern ones in terms of funding. In other words, they will (a) set up the current structure to interface with other government departments (b) they will then finance the modern records, 1935 onwards, and "what is left" may be used, if it is sufficient, to do the earlier records. Q58 Mr Lazarowicz: Is it fair to say you would want to see some more clarity at least on the Government's direction there? Mr Riggs: Yes, and I think in fact the detailed discussion and dialogue with suppliers cuts across some of the vagueness and goes a long way as far as we are concerned. It implies they will accept readily overseas keying of the data to keep the costs down. We know from experience in our community that overseas keying leads to errors, not necessarily because English is not their first language but because of lack of knowledge of local place names and surnames, and we can quote copious evidence of this. Q59 Mr Lazarowicz: So the information could be keyed in 10,000 miles away from the UK? Mr Riggs: It was done for the 1901 census by QineticQ for the Government's own website, and that was in Sri Lanka and India, and we have errors. For instance, a carpet dealer in Yorkshire has become a camel trader. That is one facetious example. There are lots of more serious ones where you have a family where the head of family's surname is entered in full, subsequent members have been entered as "ditto", they have been keyed in as Ditto, indexed as Ditto, and you would never find them, until that was pointed out by our own members and it has now been corrected. I am sure Mr Havard will sympathise with the problems in Wales especially, and we wonder what will happen to some of the Welsh place names if they are done overseas without local knowledge. Mr Lazarowicz: Some of us have surnames which might be easier to be keyed in overseas! Q60 Chairman: We have a lot of people called Ditto. You will know that in Mongolia they are just going over to enforcing a law which was passed about seven years ago where people have to have a surname for the first time ever, and most of them are choosing to have something relating to Genghis Khan. It is causing them serious problems. You know there was a tender offer for the IT for this. Having seen in the past the problems we have had with new computers in the Passport Office and various other departments - not this Government's fault, I have to say, the previous Government's fault; perhaps I am being political - do you think there are any dangers of not having necessarily a proven IT system in place when this comes in. Are there any dangers? Mr Riggs: I think the main danger is that most over-run is in terms of funding and because of that we are suspicious that there will be insufficient left over to be able to do the historic records. There is over-run on time and funds. Ms Churchill: Going back to the consultation on this, because we have no real clues about the implementation of the RRO but we are seeing some practicalities about the tendering going ahead, our experience shows us that unless the end-user of this data is involved right from the beginning and listened to on consultation, implementation and development of this database, it will not be perceived as being usable and of use to the end-user. We were involved in a consultation process for the 1901 census, for example, and all our views were not taken although we know as the end-user what we need from this database. We would seriously advocate there is consultation in the implementation process as well. Q61 Dr Naysmith: You see yourselves as the end-users, because there are all sorts of other competitors for that. Ms Churchill: Absolutely. We buy a lot of certificates at the moment from the General Registration Service, and we would suspect we are probably one of the core users for the vast majority of records. Mr Ratcliffe: This is an exciting opportunity to make sure there is a really accurate index produced compared with the indexes at the moment which have a number of faults in them. If the finance was there to do the job properly, this would set a precedent for future projects and this Committee would be particularly commended for getting through this Order which would have tremendous benefits for the future. Q62 Chairman: Basically, you are in favour of the Order providing we try and ensure the Government take note of the concerns you have put today and in your written submissions? You would want to see it go through? Mr Ratcliffe: Yes. Chairman: Has any member any final point? Q63 Mr Havard: Can I raise one small point, this thing about keying? I thought, Chairman, we were told by ONS there was going to be a double keying of information. What was said was that they will check twice they have not put in the wrong information they have received from the front end. Mr Riggs: Our experience from the past, certainly with the 1901 census, which I can quote as being a Government-led initiative, was that there was only a sample done of what had been keyed in, and if that sample was not found to be sufficiently accurate it would be redone. If that small sample was sufficiently accurate, they would not bother checking the rest of it. So there was no double keying at all in terms of the 1901 census. Other examples from commercial companies with earlier census years was that there was an even higher rate and that also was done overseas. Of interest to Dr Naysmith, Bristol has gone to Georgia, and you have Pip'n'Jay, I believe - St Philip's in Bristol - that has now become the Philippines. These are laughable to a certain extent but as far as people trying to find out details are concerned, they will not find the records if the records are not accurately keyed in. That is why I cannot stress enough our concern about overseas keying. Q64 Dr Iddon (attending the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 141(13)): Can I ask one question? Do you think the 100 year lock on people's personal data from birth is adequate, or should it be longer in view of the fact that more people are living beyond 100 years now? Mr Riggs: We welcome the fact it has already been relaxed to 75 following our earlier proposals. It is 75 for birth registers and 25 for deaths. Mr Ratcliffe: This brings us into line with the Scottish system which again is commendable. We have two different systems within the British Isles, and it is better to have systems compatible with each other. Mr Riggs: I think the date of the record is a far more practical system than the age of the person concerned, which is impractical and unworkable. That has been acknowledged and amended. Q65 Chairman: Fine. Your evidence has been helpful this morning. Is there any final point you want to make before you go, any point you feel we should have asked and have not? Mr Ratcliffe: The main point I would like to emphasise is we would like to see consistency of standards of access across the country and also that the standard of indexing, the digitisation, is of the highest possible quality so it reflects well on the ONS and the registration service. Q66 Dr Naysmith: Are you saying the standard of access varies a lot now? Mr Ratcliffe: Yes. Q67 Dr Naysmith: So you are looking on this as a way of improving things, not just saying that it has to be as good as it is now? Mr Ratcliffe: That is right, we would like the minimum standard to be the highest standard at the moment rather than the lowest standard. Dr Naysmith: Thank you. Chairman: If, when you have gone away, you think, "We should have said that and we didn't", by all means write in, but do so as soon as possible because we have a fairly tight timetable and we have to complete consideration of this proposal before the end of November and we have to publish a report before the end of November, so we do not have all that much time. Thank you very much for coming along this morning. Memorandum submitted by National Council on Archives
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Nick Kingsley, Chairman and Ms Katie Norgrove, Policy Development Officer, National Council on Archives, examined. Q68 Chairman: Mr Kingsley, I welcome you here. I will not go through again explaining our procedure because you will have picked that up from listening to what happened before you have been put into the hot seat. If you could introduce your team and say what the National Council on Archives does for the record, and make any brief points you want to make, then we will go on to questions. Mr Kingsley: Thank you very much, Chairman. My name is Nicholas Kingsley, I am Chairman of the National Council on Archives, which is an educational charity which exists as an umbrella group for bodies with an interest in archives, both from the point of view of archive professionals, the users of archives and indeed the owners of archives. We try and encompass the whole spectrum of interest in this area. I am accompanied today by Katie Norgrove, who is our Policy Development Officer, who oversees most of the development work for the Council. Q69 Chairman: Can you give an indication of how you believe the process has developed, how the proposals for the reform of the civil registration process have been handled and the consultation and things like that? Mr Kingsley: As you will have gathered from other presentations this morning, there has been an extensive consultation process. I would echo the point made by the Federation of Family History Societies that some of the consultation documents were distinctly unwieldy and hard to grapple with for the non-professional. Those of us who did have to go through 328 pages of the response to the consultation were well aware of that. The main point which I think we feel is that whilst the response to the consultation acknowledges many of the points which were made by us and indeed by other groups, we do not feel they have been properly taken into account in all circumstances, and in one or two areas I think the evidence we submitted in relation to the costs the local authorities will face, for example, in accommodating, preserving and providing public access to registers, have not been reflected in the consultation response and we have submitted that again to you in our written evidence. Q70 Chairman: Tied to that you have suggested to us that it is inappropriate for the proposed RRO to be approved in advance of the more detailed costings for the implementation phase of the project. Do you also believe problems are likely to arise during the implementation and, if so, what form do you think those problems are going to take? Mr Kingsley: That is a very broad question and I could go on for some time on that answer. Two things I would pull out. One is that we do not think the true cost to local authorities of the implementation of the present proposals has been fairly estimated, partly because the implementation has not been thought through in detail and therefore the costs are, as the various documents themselves admit, not always known yet. Q71 Chairman: They are going to get the cost, not the income? Mr Kingsley: Exactly, there is going to be a situation where local authorities lose the income from certificates, which in some cases is very substantial, and they will incur additional costs in providing higher quality storage and preservation and looking after the original records, and that will be done to the standard of the 1972 Local Government Act, as the documents currently predict, and that will cost more than the current storage which is often fairly unsatisfactory in registration offices, and they are going to incur costs in providing access to those records. What access is going to mean is going to vary depending upon the line that the ONS takes about the digitisation of the historic records, because if they choose to digitise the central records it is almost certain in a piecemeal way, over time, local authorities are going to have to invest in digitisation of local records as well or in providing other forms of surrogate, so the users can gain access to the information contained in those records without gradually eroding the physical form of the original document. Q72 Dr Naysmith: In your response to the consultation you expressed the fear that the proposals are very unlikely to result in consistent standards. Mr Kingsley: Yes. Q73 Dr Naysmith: You said there was either care of records or access to records. You have just mentioned one of the reasons is the cost and money may not be available. Is there any other reason you can think of why there should be variability? Mr Kingsley: Yes, there is. I think the problem which is admitted by ONS is that it is quite difficult to identify a single way in which the historic local records can be cared for in the future. Not all local authority record offices have the space to take them in, some local registration services have quite good accommodation and would be perfectly happy to go on looking after them themselves, and I think we could easily get into a situation where depending on the local circumstances you had a varying pattern of the provision of these services, and with that would go variations in the quality of the actual service provided. Local record offices are in the business of providing access to documents, they have a wide range of other related materials, such as parish records for example, which can be used by the genealogical community in parallel with registration records, and they would be ideally placed to provide a high standard of access. If they do not have the space and alternative arrangements have to be made, the access arrangements may be less good. Certainly from the point of view of the user, often perhaps trying to trace family history in a part of the country with which they are not familiar, to try to work out exactly who has the records and what the access arrangements are could be something of a nightmare. Q74 Dr Naysmith: What would be your solution to this problem, apart from recommending, which we probably will, appropriate funding and making sure that is recognised? Apart from that, what would you do to make sure this does not happen or to minimise it? Mr Kingsley: Funding is obviously at the core of any answer, which enables other things to take place. Essentially I think we would see the first priority being to ensure that it is, as the Federation of Family History Societies also recommended, the historic local records which are digitised, that that is done as part of a consistent national package to a good standard accompanied by good indexing. That will eliminate a lot of the costs that authorities will incur in providing other forms of surrogate locally. There should be an income stream, we would suggest, from the use of that material by genealogists and others, which can be fed not just into the coffers of the Treasury but also some of which could be routed into local authorities to help meet the costs they will incur both from loss of revenue and from the new business. That is going some way, I recognise, beyond what is in this Order and probably the proper business of the Committee. Q75 Dr Naysmith: Is there anywhere which is currently best practice which you would recommend, where things are really done well which you would like to see rolled out over the whole service? Mr Kingsley: I think we would echo what the Family History Societies have said, the Order has the potential to significantly improve upon the existing best practice. There are undoubtedly a number of registration offices which have done work on digitising their local records - for example, that has happened to some extent in Birmingham, I know - there are others where extensive indexing has been undertaken, often in partnership with local family history societies, but it is patchy. There is no consistent pattern and we would be looking for something which is both consistent and national. Q76 Brian White: I remember when the unitary authorities were being set up in the 1990s, archives were right at the bottom of the priority list, and no matter how much people wanted to do it there was always something much more important to do. Do you fear a repetition of that? Mr Kingsley: I think there is always a risk that is the case. As you say, archives tend to be some way down the priority list for local authorities in these circumstances. What is encouraging is that, partly with the assistance of the family history community, archives are very often well supported by the public and they do tend to get pushed back up the agenda if those in charge of things like to push them off it. So there is a tradition, I suppose, of quiet progress being made. I think the risk in this circumstance is more that we will get an inconsistent pattern of provision with some very good practice in some places and some poor practice in others, and the situation far from being better overall could actually be worse overall as far as access to records is concerned. Q77 Brian White: You seem to suggest in your evidence to us that the actual level of demand will increase and will be better. Why do you say that? Mr Kingsley: At the moment the position is that there is no right of access to the records themselves in terms of handling the original registers. That is not something the public can do. One understands the present arrangements will continue until such time as a digitised copy is made available, and when that happens the presumption will be in favour of public access to the originals as well as to the digitised copy. If we are in a situation where it is the central copies which have been digitised, we anticipate there will be a large demand particularly from the genealogical community but also from other users of registration records, to check the information they get from that digitised record against the original local registers. If those local registers have not themselves been filmed or digitised in some way, then there is very substantial pressure of business arising from that. Q78 Brian White: One of the things local authorities are doing at the moment is outsourcing a lot of their work, so if a particular local authority decided to outsource this, say, to yourselves, would you welcome that? Mr Kingsley: The National Council on Archives is not either an archive-holding body or indeed in the position of providing services. It is perhaps worth mentioning in my day job I am actually the county archivist in Gloucestershire, so I have some direct knowledge of the situation in local authorities. It would be perfectly possible for some local authorities to take on the provision of a service for others, and indeed that happens in relation to archive services at the moment, there are a number of service level agreements. For example, Bournemouth and Poole have a joint arrangement with Dorset County Council for the provision of county records. I am sure the logical thing in those circumstances would be for the registration service to make use of the joint arrangement in the same way. If you were to get into a situation where, for whatever reason and to take that example, Bournemouth and Poole decided to provide their own storage in their registration services for those local records, you could have something which is more complicated for the genealogical community to understand than the present arrangement. Q79 Mr Havard: You say there will be burdens of cost particular to local authorities. The assumption implicit in the documentation is we have to digitise rather than use paper and there may be savings which will help to offset some of that expenditure. The assumption seems to be in the Order that local authorities will have more "freedom" to organise things in terms of the local community which may even improve access and maybe set up these service level agreements with others. So this freedom may well give them savings as well as impose costs on them. That is the argument and I would be interested to hear your comments on that. Within that is the second area, which is about consistency in terms of standards which has been mentioned several times. I would like to know from you what you now think if the Order were to come in, what would be the regulatory regime which would help to provide this standard and good practice across the piece? There is the Information Commissioner, there is best practice in local authorities, there is a whole number of gatekeepers and various agents who play in this agenda. From your point of view, as a practitioner, do you see that being efficient or is there a better way of doing it? Mr Kingsley: Perhaps I can answer the first part of the question first. There is undoubtedly some scope for local authorities within the Order to develop new sources of income which would in part offset the costs they incur and the loss of income from certificates, and of course in not issuing certificates they would make savings in employment costs because they would need to employ fewer people to do that work. The two critical things to note are, one, I do not think anyone has suggested really a sensible way in which local authorities could generate sufficient income to both replace the loss of certificate income and to meet the new costs. Indeed, the response to the consultation that ONS has issued seems at one point to suggest that you offset certificate income from these savings and new business, and in other places you meet the new costs from those places. On the whole, my experience is you can only spend money once. Q80 Mr Havard: Not in here you don't! Mr Kingsley: I bow to your greater experience in these matters. Certainly in the local authority world, it tends to be the case that one can only spend money once, so that would be a concern. As far as the regulatory regime is concerned, I think what the Order suggests is that these documents should become local authority records subject to section 234 of the Local Government Act 1972, on which there has been best practice guidance issued by the former Department, DTLR, and that has been quite successful in promoting good standards for looking after local authority records of other kinds. In addition to which, the advent of new information legislation, both the new Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act, has been helpful in pushing information issues up the local authority agenda and ensuring records are taken more seriously and given more resources within the local authority framework. So the signs are quite good that the existing regulatory regimes would be helpful if not entirely adequate to ensure appropriate arrangements were being made. Q81 Mr Havard: The guts of what I am after is, they would be helpful but is there some confidence we can have that the arrangements which are described are adequate? There is no description yet of how these records are to be kept. Will there be a mechanism in place which will provide this consistency and will drive the standards up rather than reinforce bad practice? Mr Kingsley: What the National Council on Archives would like to see is some sort of agreement being made between ONS and the local authority registration service, if you like a scheme for the future management of access to the historic records, or indeed to records more generally, which determined where they were going to be kept and what sort of access arrangements there would be. In that way, there could both be an opportunity for driving the standards up and looking for best practice, and an opportunity for ONS to encourage local authorities to transfer records to a county records office wherever possible, and there would be opportunities to look for ways in which part of the funding provided by ONS for the registration service could be applied to ensure accommodation was available to the appropriate standard, for example. It would also provide means by which information could be brought together about what the arrangements actually were so that could then be made known to the public who want to access these records. Q82 Chairman: Do you believe this is a proposal which should go through the Regulatory Reform Order procedure? Do you think that is appropriate? Do you think it is taking account of the points which have been made and which we have to consider in our report? Do you think if we made some proposals which should be taken into account that it should go forward? Mr Kingsley: I think we are reasonably comfortable about the RRO process being used for this matter. It is open to consider whether we might have had a more informed public debate if this had been the subject of primary legislation. Although I was present when you were discussing this question earlier, it may well be the case that this process gives more opportunity for detailed consideration of the proposals, but I suspect there might have been more public awareness of the issues involved if it had been in the form of primary legislation. We are broadly comfortable with the process being used. We do have some disquiet about the way in which contributions to the consultation have been ignored and particularly about the extent to which implementation issues have not been given adequate consideration in our view before the Order was drafted. It is always difficult to know which comes first, how far it is worth planning implementation before you have approval to set the policy in place, but there are real concerns about the fact that so much is up in the air at the moment that the costs are not clear and therefore the assertions which are made in the supporting documentation to the Order and the Regulatory Impact Assessment cannot be substantiated one way or the other. Chairman: We will obviously take all the points you have made into account. I cannot predict what the Committee will decide at the end, for obvious reasons, but I can assure you all the evidence submitted to us, both written and oral, will be considered. Has any member any point to raise? Dr Iddon? Dr Iddon (attending the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 141(13)): No, thank you. Chairman: As I have said to all the other witnesses, are there any other points, other than the ones you have just mentioned in your remarks a moment ago, which you would have liked to have got on the record and put to us this morning which you would like to make now? If not, if you go away and think of something, do come back to us as soon as possible and we will be quite happy with that. Q83 Mr Havard: Can I ask a specific question? You were just starting to describe an arrangement which you thought might well be appropriate, either in the form of a code of practice or an agreement or whatever, and it might be helpful if you could set that out clearly in broad terms, what you think ought to be contained in such an arrangement and how it would be enforced, policed, and so on. Mr Kingsley: We will be happy to do that. Q84 Chairman: You will send us something on that? Mr Kingsley: Absolutely. The one point which I would like to make, which I do not think we have made in the representations directly to this Committee, is that there is in Schedule 4 of the Order, which is the code of practice, a single sentence on the question of records which refers to there being "proper arrangements for the storage of registration records", and we think that is a rather inadequate statement. We think it ought to refer certainly to the preservation of those records rather than the storage - storage is a very passive activity, preservation is a more proactive process - and indeed to the provision of access to them. It seems to me fundamental, both from what ONS itself has said about the importance of the historic records and the vast mass of consultation responses, that these are vital and invaluable historic documents whatever their other significance might be, and that we should be ensuring they are preserved and publicly accessible in the future. That should be written into the code of practice. Chairman: We will certainly look at that point. I can assure you and all the others who have given evidence this morning, that in addition to what has been raised today this Committee has already from the two meetings we have had sent a large number of questions to the appropriate people, on some of which we have had answers and on some of which we have already gone back. So we are looking very closely at the issue and will do so before we finalise our report. Thank you very much for coming along. I hope all the witnesses have found it useful; it has been useful to us in helping us to consider what is quite a complex proposal.
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