Sorry folks yet another set of difficult documents to study and write to your MP about. The Draft Regulatory Reform Order on Proposals to modernise Civil Registration was presented to Parliament on the 22nd July 2004. It costs £15 to buy the printed version and there are over 400 pages in total much of which is probably not of great concern to most us here. However if you wish to download and print it print the relevant bits you may do so from
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ab...ad/index.asp#0
I'm told you can find the most relevant part by scrolling down to Proposal presented to parliament - select 3rd link GRO doc that explains the Regulatory Reform Order go to page 273 but I haven't put that to the test.
Some of you may remember that we discussed this last year, the original proposals would have seriously impacted upon anyone searching for a birth relative in the future. I have not had a chance to see how the proposals have been changed but NORCAP seem hopeful that campaign undertaken by the adoption community as whole will have resulted in various changes. However I suspect that this Order will where adoption searching is concerned put even more power in to the hands of Adoption Support Agencies and that may be something that some of you would whish to write to your own MPs about.
So far the most disturbing part of it as far as I am concerned is that the it does not apparently change its previous definition of family which is far too narrow and that it does not recognise that birth relatives have any right to search for adopted members of their family other than through an Adoption Support Agency which as you know can deem your search to be inappropriate and refuse to continue it.
No doubt you will all be downloading and reading and will be giving me your initial opinions on it in the near future. I would be good if we could get a wider discussion of this going than we have had on the Access to Information Regulations. If we all study it together we might have a better chance of understanding it.
Robin Harritt
http://harritt.net
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