The government is intending to allow citizens to register births, deaths and marriages online or by telephone for the first time ever in England and Wales. A new, central database will be established, serving a population of 50m and holding up to 250m records, making it one of the largest IT projects of its kind in the world.
Once the new system is in place, citizens would no longer need to provide certificates to support passport or driving licenses applications.
The project is distinct from the Citizen Information Project being developed by the UK Office of National Statistics, which will create a central population register to support the Government's proposed national identity card scheme.
Treasury Minister Ruth Kelly last week laid a draft order before Parliament seeking to amend birth and death registration law in order that the project can get underway.
The legislative changes will provide new arrangements for access to registration information, allow citizens to register births and deaths in person at any register office, and make local authorities responsible for delivering face-to-face services.
The draft order will be subject to two-stage scrutiny by Parliament and may come on the statute book by next Summer.
The General Register Office is now seeking suppliers to provide the central infrastructure, web-hosting options and capture data from existing paper records, dating back to 1837, which will be gradually added to the national database.
"We intend to describe the services required in several lots, and will be happy to receive tenders for individual lots or solutions for the complete service from consortia of specialists or prime contractors", said Carrie Armitage, Civil Registration Review Project Director.
"The English registration system has been used as a model in many other countries, and we expect interest from existing suppliers of systems from as far away as Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
"As one of the key national databases supporting personal identity we think this will also attract interest from companies with experience in delivering national infrastructure solutions to the public sector in the UK."
Duncan Lockyer, Head of Infrastructure Delivery for the Project said: "Although the technology for the digitisation and retrieval of paper records is well established, with potentially 250 million records this will be one of the largest public sector exercises of its kind."
Quelle: DMeurope, 28.07.2004
