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For this who have not already heard the news, the Committees of both Houses of Parliament have come to the conclusion that the Regulatory Reform procedure is not an appropriate vehicle for carrying out the reform of the Civil Registration Service. Both suggest that primary legislation will be required, which brings us back, in principle, to somewhere near to square one.
The Commons report contains the following paragraph which will be of particular interest to archivists, and which represents successful lobbying particularly by NCA
113. We consider that future discussions about digitisation and the future of existing paper records would be more meaningful if they took place in the context of greater clarity concerning the sources and extent of future funding for these responsibilities.
We consider that a clear commitment from GRO to provide adequate funding and to draw up detailed arrangements of a programme for the full digitisation of existing registration records should be made before Parliament is asked to approve any
legislation giving the Registrar General power to incorporate the data contained in those records into a registration database. Formal legislative transfer of the responsibility for existing paper registers to local authorities should include provisions
requiring that registration records be properly preserved and made available to the public, rather than merely stored.
There is no indication as yet of how GRO will respond to the Committees' resolutions.
Jonathan Pepler
County Archivist and Data Protection Officer
Tel 01244 603391
Email: [log in to unmask]