Elected Member Briefing Note 2025, No. 161
About this Briefing Note
Report by: Alan Taylor, Strategic Lead - Customer and Digital Services
EMBN Number: 161-25
Date: 18 December 2025
Subject: Removal of dormant registration district numbers
Responsible Officer: Liz Colledge, Service Centre Manager
Details
Purpose
This briefing note outlines the changes in provision of registration services since the pandemic and is to advise of the removal of five surplus registration district numbers (i.e. Auchterarder, Pitlochry, Kinloch Rannoch, Crieff and Kinross).
Briefing Information
Background
Prior to the pandemic of 2020, all registrations of births, deaths, and marriages in Scotland were conducted in person. Informants were legally required to attend an office, provide registration information, and sign a paper register page. In Perth and Kinross, the registration service operated full-time in Perth and part-time in Kinloch Rannoch, Aberfeldy, Pitlochry, Blairgowrie, Kinross, Auchterarder and Crieff. Each office had a unique registration district number.
Changes During the Pandemic
- In March 2020, due to lockdown restrictions, the Registrar General for Scotland introduced measures (via the Coronavirus Act 2020) to remove the legal requirement for an informant's physical signature. Instead, registrars could transcribe the informant's signature with verbal permission.
- Although informants no longer needed to attend in person, register pages still had to be printed and securely stored, so the registration team remained office-based.
- Staff were assigned to work from the nearest office to home to minimise travel.
Legislative Changes in 2024
- In March 2024, further legislative changes removed the need to print register pages, allowing records to be held digitally.
Current Service Provision
- The registration service now operates from three locations: 2 High Street, Perth; Breadalbane Campus, Aberfeldy; and Leslie Street, Blairgowrie.
- Since 2020, appointments have not been conducted at Auchterarder and Pitlochry. The service ceased in Kinross in 2021, and the home-based registrar in Kinloch Rannoch retired in March 2024.
- The service has become more efficient, reducing travel time for staff and eliminating the need for expensive equipment (such as safes) at satellite offices.
- With remote registration, (i.e. telephone registration of births and deaths) all residents of Perth and Kinross now have equal access to registration services, regardless of their distance from an office.
- These dormant offices still retain a registration district number, which the Registrar General's team has asked the local authority to review and remove.
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