Blatant Profiteering
Other
As many of you know I used to work in Registration and at the time of leaving a copy birth, death or marriage certificate was £3.50, if from a current or open register, and £7 if the register had been archived.
I have need of a certificate and phoned yesterday to be told that ALL certificates are now £11 each across the board, current or old.
I had always understood that councils are not supposed to make profit from services to the public (I could be wrong) but even so I cannot see how they can justify this enormous cost when sometimes people may need 10 or 12 death certificates.
It takes less than 2 minutes to print off a computerised certificate and even pre computer entries can be inputted and printed and then future copies even quicker to produce.
When I began my career registration was a service, now it is a business, so so wrong.
In Scotland it costs £15 for a replacement and postage on top. If you want more than one they are an additional £10 each. It’s scandalous especially when you need half a dozen to send to companies when a loved one dies and they wont accept a photo copy as I found out
Exactly. If you are able to visit local institutions they will generally take a photocopy of an original and certify that they have seen said original, but if you have to keep sending away and wait for the return (at risk of loss) it may take ages.
Lynibis its the company’s who want copy’s to prove a passing that annoys me. I don’t mean the likes of insurance companies or banks. Im talking about BT. When my mum passed we tried to cancel her internet as although my dad was still alive he had no interest in the internet. They wanted an original copy to prove she had passed. To cut a long story short they had my sister in tears on the phone on several occasions and it took nearly 2 month of phone calls to actually get it canceled. It’s not like she was in the middle of a fixed contract. She had been a customer with them for over 20 years. Even then they still continued to take the money from my dads bank account for nearly a year before we noticed
From what I can remember, when we registered our sons birth it cost £10 for a copy of the certificate. When we got married the local council office lost my birth certificate, although they still claim they didn't and I had to pay to get another one.
One of the problems with councils is that they are a faceless corporation and they deem themselves unanswerable to the public. The employees wages and council income are assured but in private business they have to have a more caring attitude because their livelihood depends on their customers.
I hated working for the council for 26 years. The managers are jealous of anyone lower with a good idea (often putting it forward as their own) there is bullying and abuse of power. My role went from that of a caring professional helping people in times of distress (but also happy times) to one of selling products: folders for certificates, printing services, flowers for weddings (from the council nurseries) etc. I have never looked back since leaving although I often took cakes in to ex colleagues to cheer them up, but taking redundancy and early retirement was the best thing I ever did and now I have the freedom of a little job with lovely colleagues, amusing kids and no responsibility.
MrsCraig Yes, I must admit I was referring mainly to those in roles like mine. Sitting in the council offices doing council tax, planning, and all the myriad things that councils are responsible for. Don't get me wrong, the lower folk do mainly a very good job and have to put up with a lot of sh*t, but the managers and above can be demons to work under and certainly don't deserve the huge salaries. I was incensed to find out that the top dog in our council when I was there prior to 2012, was earning more than the Prime Minister!
Lynibis When I registered the last 3 deaths the Registrar asked if I required extra certs for Ins, Bank etc as they would cost £3 there and then or £10 if I applied later.
They should be a uniform price all over England and Wales (Scotland has their own different registration service) so when I left it was as I said above £3.50 at time of event then later issued copies were £7. We always encouraged people to get what they needed at the registration to avoid paying the higher cost later. Sometimes the extra cost is postage on top and I know at one time (after I left) they introduced an express service costing £25!!! This made me furious because we had always had them done by next day collection anyway but they ordered us to no longer do that, make them wait a week and charge the £25 for next day. As far as I am concerned that bordered on criminal for as I said above it takes just moments to print off copies, unless having to search and copy an old entry.
Lynibis Definitely an easy way to make money. When I got divorced I asked for Marriage Cert back, (the original info said you could ask for it), as I wanted to put it in my daughters family tree folder. Can't have it because it belongs to Court but they gave me details on how to apply for a replacement, have you ever heard such nonsense.
I too was surprised at the cost of Death Certificates which we needed when my father in law died in December. I will add it was not from Covid and passed away in his sleep.
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