CIVIL REGISTRATION IN THE 21^ST CENTURY

SUMMARY OF PROPOSALS TO BE IMPLEMENTED

 

CHANGES WHICH WOULD REQUIRE A CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICE RATHER THAN A CHANGE IN THE LAW

 

1. Encourage local authorities to phase out 'parlour registrar' posts when the present postholders retire or resign, except where a special case can be made for retention, such as on a remote island.

2. Encourage local authorities to provide revenue-earning local and family-history search-centres.

3. Redraw at 75 years for marriages and 50 years for deaths the line between 'historical' and 'recent' records, drawn for the purpose of making the earlier indexes and register entries visible on the Internet.

CHANGES FOR WHICH IT WOULD BE NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE TO SECURE SECONDARY LEGISLATION

(A STATUTORY INSTRUMENT)

4. Bring forward changes to require certain additional information to be given when registering a birth, death or marriage. For instance, recording the date of birth of parents when registering a birth of their child could facilitate family history searches at a later date.

CHANGES FOR WHICH IT WOULD BE NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE TO SECURE PRIMARY LEGISLATION

5. Scottish Certificates Of No Impediment to be issued only by the GROS in Edinburgh.

6. Amend statute to make all registration-district boundaries the same as those of local authorities.

7. Amend statute to allow for different premises forming part of the one registration office to have different opening hours.

8. Allow the birth of a child occurring anywhere in Scotland to be registered at any registration office in Scotland.

9. Allow the death of a person occurring anywhere in Scotland to be registered at any registration office in Scotland.

10. Retain the existing requirement for advertising marriages on a local registration-office notice board but, in addition, augment it with a list of all forthcoming marriages in Scotland, to be held centrally by GROS and be available to potential objectors and possibly available to the public on the GROS website.

11. Local authorities to be enabled to provide through their registrars ceremonies analogous to civil marriage but marking other life events. Local authorities would be expected to ensure the availability of baby-naming and marriage re-affirmation ceremonies. Other ceremonies, such as civil funerals, would be discretionary.

12. Supply automatically and electronically (for an appropriate charge) birth, death and marriage details already visible publicly on the registers to all other relevant government bodies, central and local.

13. Allow informants (for a fee) to be able to ask for wider notification of births, deaths or marriages to nominated bodies outside the government sector.

14. Enable third parties (for a fee) to ask GROS to notify them of the death of a person if and when it occurs in Scotland.

15. Allow for the issue of an abbreviated certificate of death, excluding cause-of-death information, if requested.

16. Once a no-longer-current register entry is available from GROS as on-line image, to allow local registrars to issue an authenticated formal extract on security paper (as distinct from an informal 'information' copy of the imaged entry).

17. GROS to supply a change-of-name service at an earlier stage, with widespread notifications.

18. Allow persons with Scots connections to record in Scotland's registers births, deaths and marriages already properly registered in other countries including England.