FFHS-NEWS Increased fees for registration services at the General Register Office (England and Wales) and at Local Registration Services

[News from the Federation of Family History Societies]

Increased fees for registration services at the General Register Office
(England and Wales) and at Local Registration Services

 

We have received advanced notification of increased fees coming into force
from 6 April for people ordering birth, marriage and death certificates from
the GRO.

 

The standard fee will rise from £7.00 to £9.25.  This is an increase of just
over 32%.

 

The good news is that this new standard rate will also apply where the
reference is not known or where the order is not placed online; representing
a reduction in the fee.

 

Full details can be seen in the press release at
http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/1569.htm.

 

The fee for all priority orders will become £23.40.  This represents a small
increase from £23.00 where the order is made online quoting the reference.
Where no reference is known or where the order is not placed online there
will be a reduction compared to the current fee.

 

The fee for a certificate issued by a Superintendent Registrar will increase
from £7.00 to £9.00.  Details of other fees to be charged by the Local
Registration Service are contained in the press release referred to above.

 

In the light of recent comments about additional administration fees being
charged by some local offices, it is strange that the new fee of £9.00 is
less than the new fee to be charged by the GRO.  I have heard from one
Registration Service manager explaining the need for charging more than the
current fee of £7.00.  He wrote “The arrangement of records at local offices
is very different to those of GRO.  For instance the GRO ref is of no use.
Similarly marriage certificate requests involve searching in each church -
there are no centralized indexes. Many requests (often rambling) are
accompanied by the usual (must be son of 
) which means after an extensive
search, we are unable to issue the certificate, and return the fee, despite
considerable time being wasted.”

 

I suspect we have not heard the last about this.

 

Roger Lewry

(FFHS Archives Liaison)

exec.member.rl at ffhs.org.uk

2 March 2010

 

The Federation of Family History Societies is a Company Limited by Guarantee

Company Number 2930189 (England & Wales) - Registered Charity Number 1038721

Registered Office: Artillery House, 15 Byrom Street, Manchester, England M3
4PF

 

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