AIBU to refuse to provide Nursery with longer length birth certificate?

[peonylover22]

DS has been at nursery since October. We provided a copy of his short form birth certificate, together with details of DH and me, when he was registered with the nursery. Nursery now want a copy of the longer length birth certificate for all children in their care. AIBU in refusing to provide this? I don’t want to be a “difficult parent” but I don’t want to provide the additional personal data unless there is a legal requirement for the nursery to obtain this information. Of course if there is such a legal requirement we will happily provide it.

I only realised that there was a long for of my birth certificate when I needed it to apply for my DD’s British birth certificate (she’s born abroad). Even my parents had never heard of the long one, despite obviously having signed it 40-odd years ago. I had to pay £10 to get a certified copy.
But I don’t see why on earth a nursery would need to see any copy, let alone a long form...

In case you need it, OP, the relevant paragraph of the Admissions Code is para 2.5.

Specifically the sentence that states that local authorities and schools must not ask for the long birth certificate or any document that gives information about the parent.

I’m not sure about nurseries, but in terms of primary and secondary schools/ LAs, that ‘must not’ holds the full force of the law.

I wonder what they do for DC that weren't born in England? My country doesn't give them out, they just sit in an official building somewhere.

A passport I imagine Camomila.

Lots of interesting points of view here. Thank you. As I understand it, the reason they probably want the longer form is to cross-check stated details of parental responsibility (although this could have changed since the child’s birth etc.) Although this is not technically a legal requirement, I can understand why they would want to do that. So, if they state that as the reason I will give it to them, in the interests of not souring our ongoing relationship.

And I expect you gave the correct information. We recently had someone claiming that her partner was the parent of the child and had parental responsibility- tbe man's solicitor then requested a letter from us confirming that he was active in parenting the child in support of his immigration application..... turns out he wasn't the child's father or even genuinely the partner of the mother..... We also have mothers saying that the father has no parental responsibility when they do (and therefore have a legal right to receive things like reports and invitations to parents evenings). Unfortunately these documents are needed because of the people who lie....

I agree with buggeroff

When we registered DD (earlier this year, England) we were told that there is no "long" birth certificate anymore and only just one birth certificate. Is this not the same everywhere now? What happens to these parents?

Of course if there is such a legal requirement we will happily provide it.
If there is such a legal requirement, then the nursery should be telling you what that reason is at the same time as asking you for that information

Yes but presumably if PR have changed since the birth being registered then you'd be able to produce documentation proving it.

Will you question them if they ask for your doctors details in case of an emergency?
Why would anyone need a doctor's details in case of emergency? A doctor wouldn't give out information over the phone, and a hospital would have access to that information anyway in the event that an emergency was bad enough for a child to end up in a hospital

Sounds standard. They no longer do short birth certificates as of a few months ago anyway, when we registered newborn in December I asked for copy and she said they'd been stopped around october i think it was, as schools, child benefit etc all only require the long one.

bubble
It must vary by area then, because we registered DS this week and were issued with a free short form certificate but had to pay £4 for each copy of the long form certificate

It warned us of this on the confirmation of the booking the appointment and said that any copies of the long form bought after the registration appointment would be £10

Of course schools and nursery will ask what doctors the dc is registered with.
This is incase of emergency, so that if anything happens the hospital etc would know where to get medical records from if required.
What if the school couldn’t get hold of the parents and child was taken seriously ill and ended up in hospital?!?!

I've never needed to provide a birth certificate of any length (uk also). I'd provide it if asked but I'd want to know why they need it.

This is what we got from the register office this week re long and full certificates:

This is incase of emergency, so that if anything happens the hospital etc would know where to get medical records from if required.
The hospital has access to this information. It doesn't need the school to tell them.

The long form birth certificate is usually the one requested for official government business. Whether it 'exists' anymore is immaterial if your lo has been given one in the past. My daughter has both. But as far as I know this isn't an ofsted requirement and our nursery never requested one, unless it's something very new. My daughter is in school this year and we've similarly never had to show her birth certificate, or any other documentation of her identity or parental responsibility for that matter. Unless you have a tricky case (one of you has lost custody in the past, etc.), then I can't quite see why they need it?

They are probably wanting to confirm name of child and parents - the short birth certificate only shows dob, name of child and whether male or female. From Nov 17 you have to pay for all birth certificates even the shor t one which used to be free. The most useful certificate to hold is the full one - requested by schools, Dr's and employers .

For the person upthread who said she was adopted and only had a short you can get a full - we adopted our son and when it went through we were asked wha certificates we wanted (all had to paid for) and I went for 3 full ones, didn't bother with a short one

The inspector insisted that I'd take photocopy of the child's passport or long birth certificate as there has been fraud for hours of funding
Is there a legal basis for you to collect that information, or was it just at the insistence of an Ofsted inspector?

The reason is parental responsibility it has to be recorded and if someone has a court order to remove it from one parent that court order has to be produced by the parent or body that now has sole PR. Many parents say x can not pick up my child this can not happen if they have PR and sadly now as many make up the rules documentary proof has to be gathered. If a birth certificate says both parents have PR and no court order has been produced the nursery can not legally refuse to allow the child to be taken once the parent has proved who they are. Ofsted will check that there is a robust system in place for recording and evidencing PR It doe snot mean the school have had a case but is preventative as other settings have had issues.

Ofsted will check that there is a robust system in place for recording and evidencing PR
In which case the nursery would need to tell parents the reason for the harvesting of the information. What's the point of such a rule being in place if the staff don't know about it, as it would not prevent a parent without PR picking up a child?

The PR argument does not hold water because the fact that A and B had PR for child C at birth does not mean they still have it now child C is entering nursery

It pretty much does with the exception of adopted children (who would have a new certificate issued)
Outside of adoption, removal of PR is so rare that it’s not even worthy of consideration (less than 5 times in my lifetime and I’m old)

Ofsted doesn't provide the money for the funded hours. For the 15 hours it's provided by the local authorities. So they send a representative to a number of settings every term to check that we have the correct forms filled in, and that we have proof of date of birth for the children who receive funding. One of their representatives told me (today) that I need to take a photocopy of the children's passport or of their long birth certificate. I didn't question it but I might now ask why they need the long certificate or would the short one do.

As mentioned above, the argument is that some parents have been lying about their child's date of birth in order to receive funding for the free hours.

Our NHS dentist asks for the details of the child's GP practice.

As a childminder, I do. It's on the standard form for registration, forms that are provided by professional organisations such as Pacey (the professional association for childcare and early years).

If I was to have a concern about a child being abuse I would need to communicate with other professionals and they may in turn need to get in touch with the child's Health Visitor and/or GP, and/or social worker. It's standard practice, and it's good practice that organisations communicate with each other.

Our NHS dentist asks for the details of the child's GP practice.
We're talking about nurseries, not dentists. Dentists don't have access to the details of people's GPs, and could have a legitimate need to have that information.

If I was to have a concern about a child being abuse I would need to communicate with other professionals
In which case you would communicate with such professionals as per your local authority's instructions. Not go to GPs off your own back - you wouldn't get very far if you did.