Dear Mr Emlyn-Jones,

Thank you for your email of 9^th September 2008 where you requested for information about the computerised wills index held in local Probate offices.

As you may be aware in July 1999, following an extensive procurement exercise, a 25-year PFI contract was awarded to Iron Mountain “for the provision of data handling and storage services for Probate Records for England and Wales”. By virtue of this contract, Iron Mountain holds all Probate records from 1858 on behalf of the Probate Service, and provides copy documents to the Registries as requested by the public.

As part of their obligation under the contract to update delivery of the service as advancements in technology allow, Iron Mountain is in the process of digitising the Probate Calendar (index of grants of probate/letters of administration issued). The Calendar back to 1858 has been scanned and those scanned images are currently being quality checked. It equipment has been supplied to the Registries so that when a search of the Calendar is needed in the future, all that will be required is for the user to type in the name and date (or range of dates) of death of the person for whom details are being sought and a record will appear on screen if a match is found. Copies of grants can then be requested electronically.

Iron Mountain has supplied a public terminal for each Registry and most sub-Registries to facilitate public searching of the calendar (which will be available in full outside of London and York for the first time). The corrected digitised Calendar dating back to 1921 has already been loaded onto the equipment in the Registries, Iron Mountain have indicated that the “Willfinder” database is currently 98.2% accurate, with the correction process being ongoing. As further corrections are made, the corrected Calendar will be uploaded in batches from 1960 back to 1858. It is envisaged that this will be completed by the end of 2008. You will therefore see we are working hard with our PFI partner to improve public access to our records.

We are acutely aware of the public interest in the records held by the Probate Service, and the importance of making them even more accessible. To that end, we have begun internal discussions about amongst other suggestions, making the digitised Calendar available over the Internet. These discussions are currently in their infancy, and may take some time to come to fruition. As those discussions proceed. I will ensure that your interest in direct access to the Probate Calendar is taken into consideration, as those discussions develop.

Yours sincerely.

Tania Langdon

Mrs T M Langdon

Office Manager

Probate and Family Area Director's Office

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