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Letter to the Home Secretary

Discussion in 'GRO' started by peter, Apr 30, 2013.

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  1. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Rt Hon Theresa May MP
    Home Secretary
    2 Marsham Street
    London
    SW1P 4DF 12th February 2013


    Dear Minister,

    TIME TO BRING THE GRO INTO THE 21ST CENTURY?

    When we met briefly on 29th October I indicated that I would be writing to you in connection with the General Register Office - I'm sorry it has taken so long to put my thoughts down on paper, but hopefully you'll agree that the wait has been worthwhile.

    I suspect every minister dreams of being able to please millions of people without it costing the Exchequer a brass farthing, but few ever have a chance to put such a policy into practice. I'm writing to you today to explain how with a simple reform you can transform the lives of the millions of family historians in Britain - and far from costing money, it will create additional revenue!

    The 1836 Act which established the General Register Office and the Civil Registration system was passed before Queen Victoria ascended to the throne, and whilst there have been some concessions to the advances in technology since then, such as the introduction of fountain pens, in many respects the GRO is still operating in the 19th century.

    Family history is something that the British are normally rather good at. The television programme Who Do You Think You Are? attracted such large viewing audiences on BBC2 (over 6 million) that it moved to BBC1, and has been licensed in numerous overseas territories. It has also inspired an annual show at Olympia which is said to be the best-attended family history event in the world (the 2013 show takes places between 22nd-24th February, should you want to see for yourself).

    Findmypast, a British company, is challenging the American market leader (Ancestry) not only in the UK but also in their home market; Genes Reunited, another British company, has 10 million registered members. I'm also playing a part, albeit on a much smaller scale - 60,000 family historians subscribe to my fortnightly online newsletter.

    This British success has been achieved despite the failure of the GRO to make its historical registers available online. To obtain a copy of a birth, marriage, or death entry from 150 years ago takes longer and costs just as much in real terms as it did then - despite the advent of the computer and the World Wide Web, two British inventions that transformed the world in the 20th century and continue to do so in the 21st.

    England & Wales was the first part of the United Kingdom to introduce Civil Registration, but it is now falling behind the rest of the nation. The General Register Office for Scotland long ago recognized the importance of making its historical records available on the Internet, and providing uncertified digital copies of entries - which are typically all that family historians require. The General Register Office for Northern Ireland is in the process of making similar arrangements.

    Soon England & Wales will be the only part of the kingdom where it takes longer to get a copy of a 19th century birth, marriage, or death entry than it did when Queen Victoria was on the throne! But the main concern of the millions of family historians who are researching their English and Welsh ancestors is that the cost of certificates has become prohibitive.

    Let me explain why: in the days before the Internet people researching their family trees would generally focus on a single line, and even if they researched other ancestors they usually didn't include their extended families. In those days it wasn't cost that restricted demand, it was time and distance - no wonder most people didn't take up the hobby until they retired.

    When census and other records became available online about 10 years ago it not only became feasible for many more people to research their family trees - it became possible for them to extend their research to cover their entire tree. However, the high price means that they typically limit their certificate purchases to their direct ancestors. I believe that at the right price, probably between £1.50 and £2, the demand from family historians for digital copies of register entries would be 20 to 50 times higher than the present sales of paper certificates at £9.25 each.

    Ironically the GRO makes no money selling copy certificates, even at £9.25 each, because although the physical cost of producing a certificate is only about 20p, the rest is swallowed up by staff costs and other overheads. However, digitising records and putting them online not only makes them more accessible, it brings down the cost. For example, when the 1911 Census was first made available by the National Archives in 2007 it cost £45 per household, because everything had to be done manually, but when it went online in 2009 it cost less than £2. Now it costs less than £1 per household!

    At £45 per household the National Archives were breaking even, but at less than £1 per household they are making money. Shouldn't the GRO be equally commercial when it comes to records that are of purely historical interest?

    You won't be surprised to hear that the General Register Office has plenty of excuses for not reforming: the statutes, they argue, prohibit the provision of information except in the form of a certified copy. They contend that without new primary legislation they cannot carry out the necessary reforms.

    I'm not convinced. Section 5 of the 1836 Act - which does not appear to have been repealed or amended by subsequent legislation - gives the Registrar General the power to:

    "make Regulations for the Management of the said Register Office, and for the Duties of the Registrar General, Clerks, Officers, and Servants of the said Office, and of the Registrars, Deputy Registrars, and Superintendent Registrars herein-after mentioned, in the Execution of this Act, so that they be not contrary to the Provisions herein contained"

    In fact, there was nothing in the 1836 Act that specifically prohibited the provision of information in uncertified form, or stated that the registers could not be viewed by members of the public (indeed, they were permitted to do so in the mid-19th century).

    If you agree with my analysis, then perhaps you might invite the Registrar General to use the very wide discretion provided by Section 5 to bring the systems up to date, and meet the new demand from family historians by putting the older registers online, as Scotland did years ago?

    However, should you consider that new primary legislation is required, then perhaps it should include provision for the historical registers - those over 100 years old - to be transferred to the National Archives, who already hold the national censuses and have been extremely successful in making them available online using the resources and expertise of commercial companies.

    Since what I'm writing about relates to just one small corner of one department within the Home Office, it must seem very insignificant in comparison to the much more serious issues that you have to deal with.

    And yet, because reform would benefit millions of British people and encourage genealogical tourism (something that has been very positive in Ireland, and is also being promoted in Scotland), whilst at the same time bringing in much-needed revenue for the Government, I believe that it merits your attention.

    I hope you agree.

    Yours sincerely,



    Peter Calver
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
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