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Certificates price rise

Posted: 07 Jan 2019 08:33
by gwilym'smum
Hi
Just in case members had not heard the cost of birth, marriage and death certificates, including GRO pdfs will rise, I think the date is 15th Feb. All the best
Ann

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 07 Jan 2019 09:20
by jbtapscott
Actually comes in on 16th February. Standard certified copies going up to £11 each and PDF version to £7. The Priority service goes up to £35 and they are also introducing charges for "failed" searches (viz. information provided does not match records) as well as re-introducing a charge for a search where the GRO references are not provided.

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 08 Jan 2019 18:03
by themoudie
Please note that these increases in fees apply to the UK General Record Office (GRO) and not to the National Records of Scotland (NRS).

The charges applied by the NRS appear to remain unchanged and can be found in detail on their website: NRS_service_charges_2019-01

My regards, Bill

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 09 Jan 2019 12:20
by Peter Collier
That's an increase of about 22% - that's outrageous!

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 09 Jan 2019 12:49
by ColeValleyGirl
From Peter Calver's (LostCousins) newsletter 25/12/2018:

"These increases might sound exploitative in an era of low inflation, but you might be surprised to learn that the last change in certificate prices was in 2010, since when prices generally have gone up by well over 20% - and during the same period the basic State Pension for those living in the UK will have gone up by 32.3% (though many UK pensioners living abroad haven't benefited from the increase)."

So, maybe not so outrageous?

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 09 Jan 2019 16:48
by Peter Collier
While LostCousins' point is not completely without merit, I"m afraid I'm not buying it entirely.

If the GRO have held their prices for 8 years then, fair enough, some increase is probably to be expected. However, unless the GRO's operating costs have unexpectedly gone up 22% overnight (despite public sector pay rises, for example, having been mimimal or non-existant since 2008), or it has somehow been operating at a major loss for the past decade without seeing any need to do something about until now, then a comparison to increases in other, unrelated retail prices over the same period is a red herring.

It's also Interesting to note that, for example, the Irish records office can manage to produce an uncertified copy of an entry in their registers for €4 (about £3.50) –– half the price of what the GRO charges for an uncertified PDF copy in England & Wales.

Considering one has to provide the correct reference to the GRO - there is no extensive searching on the GRO's part - and many of the registers are now even digitised, I"m afraid I'm sticking with my original "outrageous" comment.

Re: Certificates price rise

Posted: 09 Jan 2019 20:40
by jimlad68
I do not see why they cannot offer it to the likes of Ancestry and findmypast to transcribe. Most of the data cannot be confidential, for instance the Marriage detail is the same as that provided via the parish registers (which are often the source). Is it a source of great income (that is obviously how the Scottish government considers their PUBLIC records)? In that case why not hold onto the census and other data. Why is it not free to look up manually like other records.
Whose data is it!