Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council wrongly recorded his name on his son’s birth certificate. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or to show its actions caused the injustice Mr X claims.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council wrongly recorded his name on his son’s birth certificate. He must now pay £99 to correct the error and believes the Council should pay or waive this charge.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

4. When registering a birth Registrars input the information they are given by the informant, who is usually one of the parents. They then ask the informant to carefully read through the information and sign to confirm it is correct.
5. Mr X says the Registrar wrongly recorded his surname as his first name on his son’s birth certificate and his first name as his surname. He is unhappy he will have to pay to correct the register as he believes it was the Council’s error.
6. But Mr X was given the opportunity to review the information recorded by the Registrar and signed to confirm it was correct. Had he not done so, and had he alerted the Registrar to the error, the Registrar could have changed it. It is only because Mr X signed the register page as correct, which made it part of the public record, that he must now pay the fee to change it.
7. The cost to alter the record is in any event £99, which is not significant enough to warrant the cost of an Ombudsman investigation.
8. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

Back to top

Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice Mr X claims stems from his signing of the register page rather than any fault by the Council.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman