Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MS SANDRA
HOWELL AND
MS JULIE
HOLE
26 OCTOBER 2004
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 some 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 would not bother to sit down and read these documents and
I think the replies received 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. [1]
Q27 Dr Naysmith: We understand that the
Office for 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 procedure. 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 has legal worth 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 IT
infrastructure is high-tech enough and if an 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 lowest level. [2]
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. [3]
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
that was despatched from ONS. However, people were expected to
request the consultation document in order to read it through,
the leaflet just had bullet points in it, and how many members
of the public would be doing that? As a member of the public 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.
1 The document clearly stated that there would be no
consultation on transitional arrangements. This seems ridiculous
since in this case the transitional period will probably be in
excess of 10 years and will affect Local Authorities, practitioners
and members of the public. Back
2
It is inconceivable that all bodies concerned will meet the amount
of investment required on IT infrastructure. A paperless system
will not be feasible without this type of investment. Back
3
However, we believe that such major changes in legislation, which
affect every level of Society, should be the subject of a more
open and transparent process. We feel that members of the public
should be given every opportunity to voice their opinions on this
matter through open debate and a separate Bill would ensure that
this would happen.
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