Birth Certificate Bond

The request was successful.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am hoping that you can clarify some information that I have come across from many sources across many countries that all make the same claim. My request is of course limited to the United Kingdom and its territories.

1) When an event of live birth is recorded in the registrars books, is a bond then attached to that certificate that represents the potential value of the child to society?

2) If so who is the recipient of the bond that acts as the fiduciary representative for the child who's birth event was recorded?

Yours faithfully,

Gavin-Charles: Donald

General Register Office

1 Attachment

Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:40:36 +0100
Subject: Freedom of Information request GQ - Birth Certificate Bond
From: Gavin Donald <[FOI #15590 email]>
To: FOI requests at General Register Office <[email address]>

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am hoping that you can clarify some information that I have come
across from many sources across many countries that all make the
same claim. My request is of course limited to the United Kingdom
and its territories.

1) When an event of live birth is recorded in the registrars books,
is a bond then attached to that certificate that represents the
potential value of the child to society?

2) If so who is the recipient of the bond that acts as the
fiduciary representative for the child who's birth event was
recorded?

Yours faithfully,

Gavin-Charles: Donald

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Hughes Selwyn,

Dear Mr Donald,

Thank you for your email of 30 July.

A registration of birth is simply making a legal record that the birth has
taken place, and recording the details relating to that birth that are
required in law to be recorded. A certified copy (a "certificate" ) is a
true copy of what that register entry contains. There is no "bond"
attached to the certificate or the register entry. In case it may be a
source of confusion in this instance, can I mention here that the serial
number shown on each certificate is a number that identifies that
certificate (each certificate being individually numbered). It does not
relate to any bond!

I hope this is helpful.

Selwyn Hughes
Communications Manager
Identity and Passport Service | General Register Office | Communications
and Business Support | Room 208 Smedley Hydro | Trafalgar Road | Southport
| PR8 2HH

T: 0151 471 4242 | M: 07724 108 566 | E: [email address]
To find out more about the General Register Office, visit
www.direct.gov.uk/gro

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

Dear Hughes Selwyn,

Thankyou for your reply.

For clarification, on full penality of perjury and on your full commercial liabiilty could you answer the following two questions:

1) Can you please re-confirm that in no way is a Bond, Gilt or any other form of valuable consideration attached to a Birth Certificate, Certificate of Live Birth or any other document created from the information provided either by the parents of a child or under section 17(2) of the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths Act (Scotland):

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.asp...

that has value to any government organisation or private organisation by either your office or another office with which you have communications?

2) I notice that you also provide information on the numbers that appear on the Birth Certificates that was not asked for. I can only assume that you (your office) have delt with such information requests before. Can you confirm that is the case and whether or not you have used a scripted reply?

I expect that the answers you provide will settle the matter for me and I thank you for adding clarity to this issue. I trust you will accept my apologies for asking for the clarification that I ask for in question 1) above.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin-Charles: Donald

Hughes Selwyn,

Dear Mr Donald,

I can confirm that there is no bond, gilt or suchlike attached to a
birth registration or birth certificate as part of the registration
process. The registration process is purely to ensure that the birth is
recorded as having taken place and registered according to law. I should
add that you have made this request to ourselves in the General Register
Office (GRO)for England and Wales : there is a separate GRO (Scotland),
which administers Scottish registration law, but I can confirm that the
same principles apply in Scotland and no such bond or gilt is attached
to registrations there either.

In my previous response I mentioned the numbers on a birth certificate.
I did that because I'd just seen a similar query on the
whatdotheyknow.com website in which the enquirer thought that these
numbers referred to a bond or gilt, so I thought that it may help to
mention that! But no, I wasn't working from a scripted reply, and I'm
sorry if you already knew that information or didn't need it.

I hope this helps answer your query.

Selwyn Hughes
Communications Manager
Identity and Passport Service | General Register Office | Communications
and Business Support | Room 208 Smedley Hydro | Trafalgar Road |
Southport | PR8 2HH
T: 0151 471 4242 | M: 07724 108 566 | E: [email address]
To find out more about the General Register Office, visit
www.direct.gov.uk/gro

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Dear Hughes Selwyn,

Although I knew the numbers on the birth certificate had some controversy surrounding them in certain circles I did not know they were simply sequential so the information was useful and I thank you for including it.

I also thank you for your patience in this matter and now consider it closed.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin-Charles: Donald

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