Newly published transparency documents reveal several agencies will provide funding to support scheme to help transform a ‘core national function’ delivered by the same government body for almost 200 years
Government has revealed that a major project to modernise the ways in which citizens formally register major life events will cost more than £250m – a cost that will be collectively borne by three departments.
A collective total of 1.5 million births, stillbirths, adoptions, deaths, marriages, and civil partnerships across England and Wales are registered each year by the General Register Office (GRO) – a government body that has operated under the same name since being created in 1836. The agency is now based in HM Passport Office which, in turn, sits within the Home Office.
The department this summer provided initial details of the creation of the Civil Registration Service Transformation (CReST) programme which, between now and a scheduled delivery date of April 2030, aims to digitise services and replace legacy systems.
In a newly published assessment, the department has revealed additional information, including the current total estimated cost of £263.35m of delivering CReST – which forms part of the government major projects portfolio (GMPP).
“This programme is funded through the Home Office budget with contributions from Government Digital Service and the Department of Health and Social Care,” the assessment adds.
Over the next decade, this investment will deliver benefits of £291m, the government forecasts.
The accounting officer assessment – a process which is a periodic requirement for all GMPP programmes – states that the project is being undertaken as “civil registration is supported by a multitude of ageing systems used by the GRO and local registration services… [and] services and systems are reliant on equipment that is no longer readily available from commercial markets”.
“GRO records are stored on microfilm tapes which are at risk of degradation and becoming unusable,” the review adds. “There are also significant service and sustainability risks as they reach obsolescence.”
Microfilm is used by the office to store more than 130 million records, and replacing this old technology – and thereby “reducing risk to civil registration including security threats” – is one of five “strategic drivers” behind the project.
Another is to “provide value for money to the public by digitising” services and information. This will “enable easier and quicker access to registration records and reduce travel time” for citizens who, according to a previous Home Office study, currently have to make a 50 mile journey, on average, to register a death.
The provision of financial support by GDS is explained by CReST’s objective to “contribute towards the wider government digital identity agenda [including] the One Login for Government and Tell Government Once programmes”.
The other two strategic drivers for the civil registration revamp are to “give long-term business continuity” and enable the GRO to “continue to be a data provider for other critical services across government”.
Related content
- Estonia: Digital marriage and app elections in next wave of transformation
- ‘What to do when someone dies’ becomes government’s latest step-by-step service
- Government to create digital death-reporting service
The assessment, which was signed off last week by Home Office permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft, gives the programme the green light in each of the four areas assessed: regularity; propriety; value for money; and feasibility.
The document says: “The key benefits of the CReST programme include cost savings, increased productivity, enhanced customer experience, better strategic alignment, positive environmental impact, enhanced staff experience, risk reduction and continued adherence to statutory requirements. This includes assumed benefits for the Local Registration Services. While some of the benefits fall to the Home Office, local authorities will be responsible for realising the benefits when the programme has ended.”
It adds: “Transformation will provide greater infrastructure stability, ensuring GRO are able to fulfil their statutory obligations. The improved systems and infrastructure will support delivery in accordance with upcoming legislative changes.”
Multi-channel approach
The changes in question relate the Data Use and Access Bill put before parliament in October and currently working its way through the House Of Lords. The legislation provides the legal framework to “pave the way towards modernising the registration of deaths in England and Wales from a paper-based system to an electronic birth and death register”, according to government guidance issued alongside the bill.
The CReST project was conceived while the previous government was in power and the programme was briefly left in limbo, as the key piece of Conservative legislation needed to enable remote registration was not passed before the election took place.
Now that the new Labour administration has introduced its own bill, the reform programme can proceed with delivering five core workstreams, previously set out in project specification documents.
The first of these is the creation of a new “Digital Registration Service” that will offer members of the public with a “life events registration process that supports a multi-channel approach, enabling citizens the choice of online, telephone and face-to-face registrations, where allowed under current and future legislation”.
Other core objectives include: establishing “a new centralised data store for all life event information”; building new Home Office tools “to share life event data with other government departments”; implementing new tech for the “scanning and transcription… of GRO records to ensure all records are digitised and easily accessible” and populated with accurate information; and developing an “online view” platform “that enables users to view historic records online and [provides] the ability to purchase copies of certificates or PDFs if they require”.
