The Mayor considered a report regarding the Out of Hours Register Offer.
The purpose of the report was to seek approval of the minor amendments to the Out of Hours Registrars offer to reflect the needs of the community and to continue to deliver best value.
The decision required Single Member Executive approval as it was a ‘minor variation to an existing policy or procedure’ as per Section 6.38.2(a) of the constitution.
The Out of Hours Registrars offer, as set out in the Registration & Bereavement Services Charter, currently offered an on-call service of two hours each Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 11am. The cover for this call-out was provided by a rota of Registrars.
The charter stated that the Registrar would be on call on a Saturday & Sunday morning between the hours of 9:00am and 11:00am (excluding bank holidays & festive holidays) to issue any paperwork for any urgent faith burials / cremations or an ‘Out of England Order’. Contact Tel 01642 726050 and asked to be connected to the Registrar on call service.
There are three main circumstances in which the on-call service would be required by members of the community, namely Certificate for burial or cremation before registration (commonly known as “Green Forms”), Out of England Order and Urgent marriages and civil partnerships.
The most common requirement for the on-call service in Middlesbrough is around the green forms. In September 2024 the process for death registrations was changed by the introduction of the Medical Examiner.
As a result of the ME system being introduced, the Registration Service had been monitoring the impact of this change, particularly in terms of lead times between dates of death and registration dates and looking at the calls into the weekend on call service.
Since the introduction of the ME System there had not been any calls to the on-call service on Sundays and only three on Saturdays. Data was not kept pre-September 2024 regarding the number of calls for the purpose of comparison, however the number of calls, particularly on Sundays had always been minimal.
OPTIONS
Remove the out of hours option for both Saturdays and
Sundays – this change would have brought Middlesbrough out of line with other
Local Authorities in the area and would not have best met the needs of the
community in terms of being able to respond to any urgent requests.
ORDERED that the Mayor
1.
APPROVES the changes to the Out of Hours
Registrars offer as set out in the Registration & Bereavement Services
Charter, namely to remove the offer of an on call service on Sundays and to
provide clarification around the introduction of the Medical Examiner process.
REASONS
The Out of Hours Registrars offer, as set out in the
Registration & Bereavement Services Charter, currently offered an on-call
service of two hours each Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 11am. The cover for
this call-out was provided by a rota of Registrars.
Since the Medical Examiner changes in September 2024,
which were set out in Section 4 of the report, the use of this service had been
monitored as part of an informal review of its impact. Within that six-month
period, no calls had been received on Sundays.
The proposed change to the offer would bring
Middlesbrough in line with other Local Authorities in the region.
Although this reduction would not result in a significant
financial saving, it provided Best Value as the service was not being used
significantly within the community and would have a significant benefit for the
wellbeing of the Registrars Team. An Equality Impact Assessment had been
completed which concluded that the amendment to the on-call offer would not
negatively impact on any specific groups or individuals.
The duty appointment slot would remain available each
weekday and the service would continue to work within the guidance of the
General Register Office handbook.
Other options had been considered but have been
discounted for the reasons as set out below in Section 5, primarily due to not
meeting the needs of the community, and/or additional cost.
All decisions will come into force after five working days following the day the decision(s) was published unless the decision becomes subject to the call in procedures.