Registrar General delays: Faster Service Guaranteed

SORT’s probe of complaints of delays in processing of registrations of births, deaths marriages and name changes found improvements since the previous Ombudsman’s investigation in 2004. In 2007, the government announced guaranteed 15-day service for post-1991 events.

No report was issued.

 

Case update - Annual report 2006-2007

Since our 2004 investigation into delays in the processing of applications for birth and death certificates, the Ombudsman’s Office has monitored the progress of the Registrar General and the Ministry of Government Services in improving their services. Our 2005-2006 Annual Report recorded a 47% reduction in the number of related complaints and comments to our Office, from 1,309 in 2004-2005 to 697 in 2005-2006. In 2006-2007, the number of complaints and comments continued to decline, to 545.

On Jan. 15, 2007, the Registrar General announced that it was extending its “guaranteed” 15-day online birth certificate service to marriage and death certificate applications. This initiative offers a money-back guarantee that certificates for events registered in 1991 and after will be mailed within 15 business days. In March 2007, the Deputy Registrar General reported that processing time for amendment applications had been reduced to 15 weeks, delayed registrations of birth to seven weeks, and name changes – which took 30 weeks in March 2006 – were now down to three weeks. Telephone service also continues to improve, with the number of calls resulting in busy signals decreasing 99% from 2004: There were an average of 1,175 per day in March 2007, compared to as many as 130,000 per day in June 2004. The Deputy Registrar General advised that more technological improvements will come later this year as part of a customer contact improvement initiative across the Ontario Public Service.

The Ombudsman will continue to monitor and report on service developments at the Registrar General’s office.