General Register Office

The complainant requested information regarding the declaration by informant for registering the birth of a child. The General Register Office failed to adequately respond to the request despite a number of chasers from the requester and the Commissioners intervention.
A public authority will breach section 10 of FOIA if it fails to respond to a request within 20 working days. Based on the evidence available and the Commissioner intervention, by the date of this notice the public authority has not issued a substantive response to this request. Therefore the Commissioner finds a breach of section 10.
The public authority must provide a substantive response to the request in accordance with its obligations under FOIA.  
The public authority must take this step within 30 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of FOIA and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.