Council Launch Tell Us Once Birth and Bereavement Service

Thurrock Council is launching the Tell Us Once Birth and Bereavement Service on 12 October 2011.
This is a national cross-government initiative which enables customers to inform "government" about a birth or death just once at an appointment with the Registration Service.

With the customer’s consent, services within local and national government are then electronically notified automatically about the birth or death enabling prompt action and resulting in time saved by the customer and a more efficient service provision.

The service has been designed around customers, and pilots of the service have proved that it makes it easier, quicker and cheaper for both the customer and government to register a change of circumstance.
In Thurrock, the service will be offered when a resident calls to make an appointment to register a birth or a death. If the birth or death took place in Thurrock, then a Tell Us Once appointment will be offered. At the appointment with the Registrar, the birth or death will be registered as usual. For deaths, the Registrar will ask some additional questions about services the deceased was receiving, in order for notifications to be received (via a secure IT system) by these services.

Council services that will be receiving death notifications are:
Adult Services, Children’s Services, Blue Badge, Electoral Services, Library Services, Council Housing, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and Sundry Debtors

And for births:

Local authority for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Library Services, Family Information Service

Elsewhere in government, DWP and HMRC can be notified of a birth or death. The Identity and Passport Service and DVLA can also receive notification of a death.

When registering a birth, taking up the Tell Us Once service enables new parents to submit their Child Benefit claim without the need to send off a copy of the birth certificate, and other benefit claims can be fast-tracked.

Three members of staff in each of the service areas listed above have received training and are registered to use the secure Tell Us Once IT system (called CRS – Change Reporting System). The staff will log on to the system and pick up the birth or death notifications relevant to their service – they won’t be able to amend or change the notifications, and will only receive notifications for their service, not a list of all the births and deaths. Services will then act on the notifications as they usually would – by updating systems and databases and taking the necessary action.

Many births and deaths of Thurrock residents take place elsewhere in Essex (in particular Basildon and Southend). These areas will also be offering the Tell Us Once service – Southend from 4 October 2011, and Essex (including Basildon) from 16 November. This means, for example, that if a death of a Thurrock resident is registered in Basildon, from 16 November, they will be offered the Tell Us Once service and Thurrock Council will receive the relevant notifications about the death.

If you have any questions, please contact Lorraine Surrey, Project Manager, on lsurrey@thurrock.gov.uk.