Select Committee on Regulatory Reform Second Report


APPENDIX C

Further letter from the Committee Specialist to the General Register Office dated 19 October 2004

Proposal for the Regulatory Reform (Registration of Births and Deaths) (England and Wales) Order 2004: request for further information

Thank you for the letter of 18 October 2004 from Dennis Roberts, answering those questions designated for urgent answer in my previous letter to you dated 12 October.

The Regulatory Reform Committee deliberated on further aspects of this proposed Regulatory Reform Order at its meeting today and resolved to seek further information from the General Register Office in relation to a number of aspects of it. The issues which concern the Committee are set out below, under the relevant categories for consideration in the Regulatory Reform Act and the Committee's Standing Order. For clarity, the numbering of questions follows on from the earlier letter.

The Committee would find it helpful if it could consider the GRO's response to two questions arising from the substance of Mr Roberts' letter at its next meeting. Could I therefore ask you to respond to questions 67 and 68 below by no later than noon on Monday, 25 October. It will be helpful to have your response to the remaining questions in this letter by Tuesday, 2 November.

Urgent questions (for answer by noon on 25 October)

1.  In its first question the Committee asked the Department how the duties which the present law imposes on qualified informants affect those persons "in the carrying on of any activity". In its response the Department states that "the activity concerned is the registration of births and deaths" and that "the group of persons affected by burdens in carrying on any activity is the public and registration officers in particular, and the activity is the registration of births and deaths".

2.  The Committee agrees that registration officers carry on the activity of registering births and deaths (so that burdens imposed on them in the carrying of that activity may be reformed under the RRA). It does not understand how it is the case that qualified informants carry on that activity.

Q 67  What the Committee wishes the Department to explain is in the carrying on of what activity by them are qualified informants subject to the duties imposed on them under sections 2, 16(3) and 17(3) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. If in the Department's view those persons are not carrying on any activity for present purposes, in what way is it thought that the duties imposed on them affect registration officers in the carrying on of their registration activities?

3.  In its response to the Committee's fourth question the Department states that many burdens imposed on the Registrar General affect registration officers and local authorities.

Q 68  Please will the Department explain whether those burdens which do not appear to affect registration officers or local authorities (those imposed by section 3A(1) to (4) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, for example) affect only the Registrar General and, if so, only a government department.

Other questions (for answer by Tuesday, 2 November)

Whether the proposals have been the subject of, and taken appropriate account of, estimates of increases or reductions in costs or other benefits which may result from their implementation (S.O. No. 141(6)(m)

4.  The Committee has considered the Regulatory Impact Assessment produced on the proposal and the estimates this makes of increases or reductions in costs, where these can meaningfully be quantified. The Committee would find it helpful to have your responses to the following points in relation to the issues of costs, savings and other benefits.

Options and Benefits

Q 69  Please indicate whether funding to registration authorities will be ring-fenced?

Q 70  Please indicate how inclusion in the Best Value and Comprehensive Performance Assessments inspection regimes might affect the regularity with which registration services would be reviewed.

Q 71  Please indicate who would have responsibility for inspection over remote entries to the Register.

Q 72  Please indicate what evidence exists to support the view that offering postal registrations will reduce the number of remote registrations

Q 73  Please indicate why the GRO believes the accuracy and integrity of records would be more likely to be compromised in transferring information from paper to the Register as opposed to from a telephone or on-line registration.

Q 74  The RIA does not identify any options for the 'records' section objectives of:

a.  Modernising the system for capturing and holding civil registration information relating to births and deaths;

b.  Modernising the system for updating civil registrations information relating to births and deaths; and

c.  Putting in place arrangements for archiving existing paper birth and death records held locally.

Please therefore indicate what options have been considered, which are the preferred courses of action and what are the related costs and benefits.

Costs

Q 75  Please provide evidence supporting the estimate of £5 million for the development of the national database, breaking the costs down between:

-  Database design and development

-  Hardware

-  Networking and remote access

-  On-going maintenance

-  Systems upgrades

-  Re-archiving of records onto the latest formats

-  Record-checking (querying) facility for private sector and other government departments

-  Security systems to prevent unauthorised access or manipulation to records

-  Contingency arrangements

Q 76  Please indicate how was the estimate of £20m for the conversion of the records of the existing population determined.

Q 77  Please indicate how much you estimate the ICT infrastructure, accommodation, management, training and staffing will cost for i) the contact centre and ii) for the on-line processing centre?

Q 78  Please indicate what estimates have been made of take-up rates for telephone and on-line registrations over the next 10 years and how these might affect contact and on-line processing centre costs.

Q 79  How much will the creation of 'life-records' cost in terms of additional staff time?

Q 80  Please indicate how many queries (identity searches) the GRO estimates the database will be asked to perform each day and what will be its maximum capability. How does this compare to the number of query requests received on similar systems?

Q 81  Please indicate how the fees for services, prescribed in Schedule 5 of the proposed Order have been costed. Are fees intended to cover the cost of the database development and on-going maintenance and, if so, when do you expect to break even?

Q 82  Please provide evidence supporting the calculation of the likely reduction to income and costs in the registration service of £8 million and £23 million respectively.

Q 83  By how much do you estimate benefit fraud will reduce as a result of imposing restricted access to birth and death records?

Q 84  Does the GRO expect a wider range of businesses to begin checking registration records once electronic searches are available? If so, what are the projections? How much revenue do you expect to raise from these and will any of this be re-distributed to registration authorities?

Unintended Consequences

Q 85  Do you foresee a significant number of claims under employment legislation by Registrars once they are local authority employees? Will this legislative protection have any other effects on the way registrars conduct their work, for example, reduced weekend or day-time office hours?

Q 86  Do you believe a greater number of false applications will be made by identity fraudsters who may perceive the changes in provisions as a relaxation of the law?

Q 87  What indications have the private sector given as to whether they will pass on the costs of identity checks to the consumer in the form of higher insurance premiums, less favourable credit terms, etc?

Q 88  If additional statistical information given is false, this may impact on public policy decisions. Please indicate how its accuracy will be verified.

Whether the proposals appear to be incompatible with]any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union (S.O. No. 141(6)(i))

5.  The Committee is required to consider in each case whether a proposal for an RRO appears to be incompatible with any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union.

6.  This issue is not addressed explicitly in the explanatory statement, although the Committee notes, and agrees with, the statement in Chapter 22 that the proposals are not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Q 89  What account has been taken of obligations arising from membership of the European Union in drawing up the proposed RRO?

Whether the proposals have been the subject of, and taken appropriate account of, adequate consultation (S.O. No. 141(6)(d))

7.  The Committee notes the numerous responses to the GRO's consultation exercise on the proposals. In relation to the consultation process, it would welcome further information from the GRO in relation to the account taken of some specific points and responses.

Q 90  What account was taken of the British Humanist Association's concerns on competition from local authorities in relation to secular baby-naming ceremonies?

Q 91  What account was taken of the concerns about restricted information in death certificates raised on behalf of people brought up separately from their natural family who were trying to find out about their family medical history from death records?

Q 92  What was the GRO's response to the concerns raised by CIFAS and the REaD Group on list cleaning?

Q 93  What account was taken of the appeal from the Association of Family History Societies of Wales for 'Address' to be included on the details supplied?

Q 94  Can the GRO clarify how many responses were received to the consultation; and how many responses were received to each of the points on which are reported in Appendix 2 to the Regulatory Impact Assessment?

Whether the proposals satisfy the test of proportionality between burdens and benefits set out in sections 1 and 3 of the Regulatory Reform Act (S.O. No. 141(6)(k))

Through life records

Q 95  Please indicate what estimates the GRO has made of the rate at which it would be possible to establish through-life records for persons in England and Wales.

Q 96  Please indicate whether any disadvantages in terms of ease of access to public or commercial services might arise for those persons who after a period of 10 years were not the subject of through-life records within the register, whether by virtue of having been born in another jurisdiction or for any other reason, and if not, why not.

Access to registration records

Q 97  Please explain the practical operation of the current arrangements for access by members of the public to information held in registration records and describe how the move to the proposed new system would deliver an overall improvement to the accessibility and availability of registration records.

Q 98  Please indicate the considerations which led to the setting of the proposed time restrictions on the full public availability of registration records in Schedule 9.

Q 99  Please indicate what representations may have been made to the GRO in the period when this proposal was being developed concerning the desirability of restricting the availability of cause of death information and what account was taken of them in formulating the proposal.

Whether the proposals continue necessary protection (S.O.No. 141(6)(c))

Form of the register

Q 100  Please provide details of the Registrar General's intentions in respect of:

a) how the proposed register will be made secure against unauthorised access by persons outside the registration service, whether for purposes of viewing information or amending data held within it;

b) arrangements for disaster recovery in the event of major software, hardware or other accidental or intended facility damage.

Amendment to the registration of a birth where the parents are not married

7.  The Committee notes that Article 27 of the proposed Order provides an amended procedure for entering the name of a person as father of a still-born child.

Q 101  Please explain why it is no longer regarded as necessary for claims to the paternity of a still-born child to be supported by declarations in the forms required by section 10(1) of the Birth and Death Registration Act 1953 and why the removal of such a requirement does not remove a necessary protection.

Q 102  Please indicate what evidence the GRO considers the Registrar General or a registration authority might consider satisfactory evidence of a man's paternity under Article 27 of the proposed Order.

8.  Article 16(11) replaces the current requirements for the addition of the father's name to other birth entries. In place of the requirements for two declarations (one of which must be a statutory declaration by the parent who is not requesting the change) the proposal would require only a simple declaration by that parent, or a court finding that the person to be registered as father is the father. In the latter case no corroboration would be required of the facts found by the court where the finding was based solely on the evidence of the person seeking the alteration.

9.  This is at odds with the procedure for correcting the identity of the father shown in an entry which was added to the present Act by the Deregulation (Correction of Birth and Death Entries in Registers or Other Records) Order 2002. This requires that, if it appears to the registrar that the only evidence on which the finding was based was that of the person making the declaration, another credible person with knowledge of the facts must confirm the facts. This requirement is reproduced in article 28 of the proposed order for corrections to the identity of the father. The Committee think that a similar point could arise in relation to additions of the father's name. The Committee therefore wish to ask the GRO to explain why provision for corroboration of court findings based on the sole evidence of the person seeking the amendment is not required in the latter case also.

Q 103  Please indicate why provision for corroboration of court findings based on the sole evidence of the person seeking the amendment is not required in the latter case also.

Access to particulars of a still-birth

Q 104  In what circumstances the GRO considers that the Registrar General, acting under proposed new powers to be created by Article 36 of the Order, might see fit to make a record of still-birth available to a person other than the parents, and to whom?

Definition of 'relative'

Q 105  Please explain the meaning of the term "unregistered civil partner" as used at Article 63(5)(f)(ii) of the proposed Order.

Q 106  Please indicate whether it is expected that this term will be given an explicit legal definition in the Civil Partnerships Bill, and if so, please supply the intended definition.

19 October 2004


 
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