Mr A J P Henderson

Email: [FOI #17235 email]

Date 16 October 2009

Dear Mr Henderson,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your email of 14 September. I am sorry that following your original request for a copy of the birth entry of Henry Askew, born in 1859, our General Register Office (GRO) did not make clear why this request was not covered by the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. The information you requested is part of the national record of births held by the GRO. Under the provisions of section 30 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Registrar General is obliged to make an index of this record, and to make this available for the public to access. The public are allowed to access this index, and to have a certified copy of any entry in the record on payment of the appropriate fee. The Births and Deaths Registration Act does not make provision for the information in the record to be divulged in any other way than by the purchase of a certified copy.

One of the exemptions to the disclosure provisions of the Freedom of Information Act is under section 21, which exempts "information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1", and this includes where information may only be accessible on payment (as is the case with registration records).

This is why the response to your initial request was to send you details of how to order a certificate, but I apologise that this was not made clear. Just to clarify one other matter from the earlier correspondence: although the Identity and Passport Service(IPS) is registered as a public body for the purposes of the FoI Act, the national record of births, deaths and marriages are not "public records" as defined by the Public Records Act 1958. Access to them remains as defined in the various registration Acts, as with the Births and Deaths Registration Act cited above.

I hope this helps to clarify the situation and I am sorry for any inconvenience to you in pursuing your request.

Yours sincerely,

H Reid

Freedom of Information Team

Passport Adviceline: 0300 222 0000. (07.00 - 23.00 seven days a week)

Email us at [General Register Office request email]. Visit our website at www.ips.gov.uk.

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