The Newsletter of the Family Records Centre (FRC) - Issue 21 Winter 2003 (8th online edition)

News from the FRC

Closure Dates in 2003

Friday 18 April to Monday 21 April (Easter)
Monday 5 May (May Bank Holiday)
Monday 26 May (Spring Bank Holiday)
Monday 25 August (August Bank Holiday)
Wednesday 24 to Saturday 27 December (Christmas)

Thursday 1 January 2004 (New Year's Day)

New Reception/Customer Service Desk

December 2002 saw the opening of a new reception/customer service desk on the ground floor. The new desk is more spacious and provides a friendly and welcoming area in which to greet customers and deal with their enquiries.

1901 Census Microfiche

Regular visitors will be aware that the 1901 Census on microfiche was made available at the FRC at the beginning of December. The decision to introduce the fiche service at the FRC followed the successful relaunch of the 1901 Census Website in September and was made as a result of customer feedback.

A complete set of fiche for the whole of England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man together with the associated street and place-name indexes will be found in Area A on the first floor. The FRC continues to provide access to the online service in the same area via 38 dedicated PCs where you can also make use of the expert advice of our experienced staff.

Indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths for 2001

The birth, marriage and death indexes for 2001 are now available at the FRC. Please note that filming of the registers is not yet complete. Therefore, if you require a certificate relating to one of these more recent events it may be necessary to apply to the local register office where the event was registered.

Revised Certificate Fees

Revised fees for certificates will come into effect on 1 April 2003. The standard fee for a full certificate of birth, marriage, death or adoption will be £7.00.

For further details of the new fees, see below.

Charles Dickens at the FRC

The latest in the series of exhibitions featuring famous names from the nineteenth century was launched at the start of the year. The subject this time is Charles Dickens and the exhibition features a wide range of documents relating to England's most famous novelist and his family. The documents used in the display are taken from the holdings of the FRC as well as from other sources such as the London Metropolitan Archives, the General Register Office for Scotland and Portsmouth Records Office.

Dickens House Museum

We are also delighted to announce that staff from the Dickens House Museum will be visiting the FRC during February. You will have the opportunity to learn about various items from the museum's collection by handling rarities such as a letter from Dickens, a first edition and other memorabilia. There will also be the chance to learn how to use a quill pen of the same type as Dickens's own. The handling sessions will take place on Tuesday 18 and Saturday 22 February in the display area on the first floor.

Meet the Neighbours

The FRC is pleased to introduce a special two-day event, offering the chance for visitors to meet staff from County Record Offices and Local Studies Libraries in London and the South East.

The event will take place on Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 April in the display area on the first floor.

Organisations attending this event include:

* London Metropolitan Archives
* Surrey History Centre
* Kent Archives Service
* Westminster Archives
* Essex Record Office
* Islington Local History Collection
* Hackney Archives Department
* Southwark Local Studies Library

Further details of this event will be available from the beginning of February on the News & Events section of this website.

Staff News

Jill Allbrooke was appointed PRO Centre Manager in November. Jill may be familiar to FRC customers who also use the British Library Newspaper Library in Colindale. Before joining the PRO, she spent 12 years at Colindale, initially as Information Officer and latterly as Newspaper Services Manager. She regularly gave talks on the use of newspapers in family history to local societies and other organisations and has published a number of articles on the history of women's magazines. Jill is a qualified librarian and previously worked in the British Library's bibliographical services and in a government department library.

Talks at the FRC in 2003

We are still in the process of planning this year's series of Family History Talks at the FRC. Among the topics to be featured this summer are: Police Records, Quaker Ancestry, Mental Health Records and Family History on the Internet.

As in previous years the talks will take place on Tuesday afternoons in the Meetings Room. Entry will be free and tickets will be issued from the New Customers Desk on the first floor on the day of the talk. No advance bookings will be taken.

Full details of this year's programme will be published in the April 2003 edition of the Family Record.

1841 & 1851 Census Microfilms

Since our last report on this in the April 2002 issue of the Family Record, replacement microfilms have been made available for the whole of the 1841 census (HO107/1-1465) and most of 1851 (HO107/1466-2400). The remaining 1851 microfilms are expected in the next few months. Feedback from customers suggests that the improvement in quality is significant.

Open Evening - Wednesday 6 November

The following is a selection of the questions raised at the FRC Open Evening in November 2002.

Q. Will GRO staff act when index errors are reported?
A. Yes, but the process of investigating and correcting the errors can take some time. (See 'Putting the Record Straight' in the October 2002 issue of the Family Record for further information.)

Q. Could the Office for National Statistics (ONS) consider a system that allows the public to fax certificate requests and receive faxed certificates in return?
A. Certificate requests can be faxed to Southport but legislation permits only the issue of physical certificates.

Q. Could libraries act as agents for ONS and forward certificate requests to GRO?
A. Although ONS is improving liaison with the libraries, there are no plans at present to develop a certificate service.

Q. Could A to Z street indexes be provided for the major cities?
A. To be investigated.

Q. Could signage about the use of mobile phones be improved?
A. New notices are planned (these are now in place).

The date of the next FRC Open Meeting will be publicised in the April 2003 issue of the Family Record.

News From The GRO, Southport

Certificate Fees

Each year the fees charged for certificates by the General Register Office are reviewed during the months of October/November. Our aim in setting the statutory fee is to ensure that ONS only recovers the costs relating to the service provided.

The efficiency measures implemented over the last few years have meant that we have been able to maintain the current level of fees for the last 4 years. The review undertaken this year highlighted that, despite the efficiency measures and in order to meet our costs, certificate fees would have to be increased by 50 pence.

Changes to the statutory fee have to be included in an Order agreed by the minister and laid before Parliament. This was completed in December 2002.

For applications taken at the FRC, the revised fees, as from 1 April 2003, are as follows:

Standard Service

Full certificate of birth, marriage or death £7.00
Full certificate of adoption £7.00
Short certificate of birth £7.00
Short certificate of adoption £5.50

Priority Service

Full certificate of birth, marriage or death £23.00
Full certificate of adoption £23.00
Short certificate of birth £23.00
Short certificate of adoption £21.50

The administration fee charged in cases where we are unable to produce a certificate will remain the same. This means that refunds will increase to £4.00.

The complete list of revised fees will be included on the ONS website and displayed at the FRC in the near future.

Charges at Local Register Offices are also being increased by 50 pence.

Certificate Services Delivery Targets

Our performance is measured against a number of targets on a monthly basis. The table below details our performance for the period October to December in just some of the areas monitored.

* Target = % of applications processed within 4 working days

The percentage of applications sent out on time in October was disappointing. This was due to a sudden increase in applications - perhaps due to the relaunch of the 1901 Census website. Regular monitoring of our workload meant that contingency plans were quickly put into place and by November we were back on track.

A total of 224,215 applications for birth, death and marriage certificates were processed in the quarter ending December 2002.

Charter Mark Success

Certificate Services Branch is celebrating being awarded a Charter Mark. The award has been given in recognition of excellent customer service within the public sector.

Our Charter Mark application started three years ago when we benchmarked ourselves against the Charter Mark criteria. This identified a number of areas for development.

Over the last few years we have worked on improving these areas whilst continuing to build on our strengths. Consultation with our customers via user groups, open forums and surveys ensured that improvements were customer focussed. Staff were also consulted and encouraged to put forward ideas for change.

That initial hard work paid off. We now offer a much-improved service where our targets are achieved on a regular basis. Access to our services has also been enhanced and the methods for consultation are now embedded in the processes we use.

Thanks are due to all the staff who recognised the need for change and then worked together to deliver what was required.

Certificate Services Southport
- Open Days November 2002

In November 2002 Certificate Services again threw open its doors and welcomed over 300 customers to its Southport offices. The event, now in its third year and therefore almost an annual tradition, normally takes place over two days. This year, due to demand, the usual two days was extended to four.

The event aims to give customers an insight into the workings of the department as well as an appreciation of the processes and scale of the operation. (Certificate Services handled 827,076 certificate applications in 2001/2002).

Each 'tour' lasted 2 hours and began by giving visitors an overview of Certificate Services and how it links with the Family Records Centre. Groups of 7/10 people were then taken around the various sections where members of staff answered questions. The tours finished with refreshments followed by a question and answer session with representatives from the Registration Review Team, Adoptions Section, Overseas Section and the Head of Certificate Services Branch, Margaret Harris.

The event was oversubscribed in 2002 and the waiting list for 2003 is already growing. We therefore hope to review the format of the Open Days in 2003 to allow more visitors to attend.

News From The PRO, Kew

PRO Information Leaflets

During December, a touch screen printer was installed in the Lobby on the first floor, so that visitors to Kew can print off copies of the on-line records information leaflets. The printer has been positioned where the paper versions of the leaflets were sited previously. This is a pilot project and the paper leaflets are still available to readers in the Lobby (these are now to be found along the opposite wall where the old General Information leaflet pigeonholes were situated).

Copies of the leaflets are only available in A4 format and are completely free.

Memories from the Islands

This fascinating exhibition is the result of a partnership between the Public Record Office, Moving Here and members of Haringey's local community. Photographs taken in the Caribbean between 1945 and 1965 form the inspiration for a series of memories that illustrate some of the aspects of life in the Caribbean during that period. The exhibition will run until Wednesday 26 February in the museum at Kew.

Further information

If you would like more information about any of the items in this newsletter please telephone
020 8392 5300 or visit our website at:

www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc

To subscribe to the electronic version of the Family Record please send an email to:

FRC-Newsletter@pro.gov.uk

with the word 'Subscribe' in the subject heading.

The Family Record is jointly produced by the General Register Office (GRO) and the Public Record Office (PRO).