Registrars service delivery

About Kensington and Chelsea

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a unique and diverse central London borough, which is rich in culture and heritage.

With a population of almost 144,000 residents, the borough is home to residents of over 50 different nationalities who speak over 80 languages. The borough hosts many nationally and internationally recognised cultural attractions like Notting Hill Carnival and Opera Holland Park. North Kensington is an area known around the world for its vibrant cultural heritage, musical authenticity, and proud history. Kensington Palace, the Victoria & Albert, Natural History, Science and Design Museums are just some of the borough’s landmark institutions, as well as world class retail stores and unique independent shops and markets, including the world-famous Portobello Market.

As a central London borough, Kensington and Chelsea also has a large visitor economy with 136,000 jobs and nearly 16,000 businesses. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has strong ambitions to become the very best council, detailed its newly published Council Plan for 2023 to 2027, and identifies making the borough greener, safer and fairer as its main priorities.

Services offered

The Kensington and Chelsea Registration Service provides all statutory, and some non-statutory, registration services.

Statutory services

The statutory services result from various Registration Acts, in particular:

• Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1953
• Marriage Act 1949 (as amended)
• Civil Partnership Act 2004
• Immigration and Asylum Act 2002

These include:

• registration of all births, deaths and still-births occurring with the boundaries of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
• attestation of notices of marriage and civil partnerships
• conducting (where appropriate) and registering of marriages, civil partnerships and marriage to civil partnership conversions occurring with the registration district
• conducting of citizenship ceremonies
• maintaining of all deposited registers of births, deaths and marriages and issuing certified copies of the entry when possible
• assisting clergy, secretaries and authorised persons with the registration of marriages

and all associated administration.

Non-statutory services

The non-statutory services result from the relaxations in the Local Government Act 2003 regarding previous restrictions on what services a local authority can and cannot provide. The non-statutory services currently offered are:

• naming ceremonies
• renewal of vows
• commitment ceremonies

Registration district boundaries

The registration district of Kensington and Chelsea has as its boundaries the same as that of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The borough is bordered by:

• London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham to the west
• Wandsworth across the River Thames to the south
• Brent to the north
• City of Westminster to the east

There is just one registration district, which is comprised of one sub-district which has the same boundaries covering the whole of the borough.

Registration Service staff

The Registration Service is operated by the local authority working with the registration officers and the HM Passport Office (General Register Office).

The council’s Director for Communities, Moira Ugoji, is appointed as Proper Officer for Registration Matters. Registration and Ceremonies Officers are personally responsible for the performance of their duties under the direction of the Registrar General and the Proper Officer.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea currently employs 35 members of staff in the Registration Service:

• one head of Registration Service
• three registration team managers
• 15 registration and ceremonies officers
• 14 registration and ceremonies officers (sessional)
• one ceremonies usher

There are currently two principal officer posts: one superintendent registrar, and one registrar of births and deaths. These posts are held by two managers in the Registration Service.

Service locations

Registration services are provided from:

Kensington and Chelsea Register Office
Chelsea Old Town Hall
King’s Road
London
SW3 5EE

Public citizenship ceremonies are delivered from:

Kensington Town Hall
Hornton Street
London
W8 7NX

Opening hours

Registration Service opening hours are:

• Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday: 8am to 5pm
• Thursday: 8am to to 7pm
• Saturday: 10am to 6pm

We offer an on call service for same day burials and cremations on Sundays from 9am to 10am.

Contact us

Kensington and Chelsea Register Office
Chelsea Old Town Hall
King’s Road
London
SW3 5EE

• telephone: 020 7361 4100
• email: [email protected]
• www.rbkc.gov.uk/registrars

Out of hours service

An out of hours service is provided from 9am to 10am on Sundays and most public holidays where a member of staff is on call to deal with emergencies, usually deaths requiring a same-day burial or cremation in line with religious custom.

The Royal Borough’s local authority liaison officer via the out of hours service provides the necessary contact details:

• telephone: 020 7361 3000

Marriages and civil partnerships

Marriage ceremonies and civil partnership registrations may take place by appointment in approved premises seven days a week.

Service standards

Under the current governance arrangements, the Registration Service Act 1953 confers upon the Local Authority obligations and powers in regard to the registration of births, deaths and marriages. The current local scheme as amended came into operation on 1 June 2005, known as 'The Kensington and Chelsea Registration (Amendment) Scheme 2005'.

Under this scheme, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea commits to achieving the national service delivery standards contained in both the Code of Practice for Local Registration Authorities in England and Wales and in its accompanying Good Practice Guide, jointly developed by the GRO and The National Panel for Registration.

We will report on our performance against these targets within two months of the end of the financial year and publicise this performance on our website and in the Register Office. We will also report at the same time in our annual performance report to the Registrar General against the key performance indicators as follows.

Events accurately registered within statutory timeframe

i). National standard: 98% of births and still-births registered within 42 days.
ii). National standard: 95% of non-coronial deaths registered within five days of receipt of the required paperwork from the medical examiner.
iii). 80% of deaths after post mortem (excluding inquest cases) registered within sevendays of occurrence.
iii). National standard: 95% of deaths registered within 24 hrs of receipt of coroner’s certificate after inquest.

Average waiting times

i). National standard: 95% of customers able to obtain an appointment to register a birth or complete a birth declaration within five working days.
ii). National standard: 95% of customers able to obtain an appointment for to register a death or still-birth, or complete a declaration for these events, within two working days.
iii). National standard: 95% of customers able to obtain an appointment to give notice within 10 working days.
iv). National standard: 95% of customers with an appointment to be seen within 10 minutes of their appointment time.

Issue of certificates from deposited registers

National standard: 95% of certificate applications from deposited registers to be dealt with within 14 days of receipt.

Actioning re-registration and correction authorities

90% of applicants offered an appointment within 10 days of receiving General Register Office approval (where it is required).

Citizenship certificates

National standard: 100% of certificates to be dated correctly and notifications for citizenship certificates sent to the Home Office within 14 days of the ceremony.

Accurately record birth, still-birth and death information on forms of declaration

National standard: 95% of incoming declarations registered within 24 working hours of receipt.

Customer satisfaction

National standard: 95% of customers satisfied with our service.

Our achievement against the targets of all our standards continues to be publicly available.

Procedures for complaints, suggestions and consultation

Complaints and suggestions

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council aims to provide excellent services to all our customers but recognises occasionally things may go wrong. Complaints are welcomed because they can:

• provide us with an opportunity to put things right if we have made an error
• allow us to monitor trends that we can react to, to make sure the same mistake does not happen again

Corporate leaflets are freely available in reception and all the interview rooms.

Customers with a compliment, comment or complaint are encouraged to contact us directly via telephone, e-mail, or by letter.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea also has a Corporate Comments, Complaints and Compliments online form which Registration Service customers are encouraged to use. This page also provides contact details for council directors should a customer wish to address a complaint, comment or compliment directly to them.

The Registration Service complies with this policy. Details of complaints are monitored by the Superintendent Registrar and, if necessary, details are forwarded to the Proper Officer. In the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, there were:

• four formal complaints, plus an additional 3 rejected or redirected complaints, from around 50,000 customer interactions, all of which were deemed not serious and were easily rectified with learning points incorporated
• 447 written instances of customer praise
   

Complaints procedure

Stage One

The relevant service team manager, or head of service, will look into your concerns and aim to reply to you within ten working days.

Stage Two

If you are dissatisfied with the response at Stage One, complainants should respond within 20 working days of the response and the complaint will be moved onto Stage Two.

The head of service or director of the department that the complaint is linked to will look into the concerns and will aim to reply within 20 working days.

If still not satisfied with the way the council has handled your complaint

It’s possible then to refer your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is a free, independent service. Their role is to investigate individual complaints in a fair and an impartial way:

Local Government Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH

• telephone: 0300 061 0614
• www.lgo.org.uk
   

Consultation procedure

There are various ways in which our customers can have a say on how we run our services.

The Kensington and Chelsea Registration Service aims to put citizens at the heart of decisions taken to improve the service. We therefore abide by our Customer Engagement Strategy.

Business continuity plan

Kensington and Chelsea has a corporate business continuity plan which provides a framework for the restoration of council services should their delivery be interrupted by an unexpected event or series of events outside the council’s control. Registration Services is included within this plan.

The Registration Service’s Business Continuity Plan contains details of how to deal with:

• unavailability of registration certificates, forms or current registers
• lack of access to buildings and deposited registers
• how and when stakeholders are notified of changes or restrictions to accessing the service during a contingency incident
• IT systems failure
• significant variations in service delivery including a flu pandemic
• plans and arrangements for dealing with severe weather conditions and non-attendance at ceremonies
• mitigation against cyber security attacks
• ensuring policies and procedures are in place to deal with such events

The plan is updated annually, has most recently been updated onto a new corporate business continuity plan database which will allow departments to better work together and share resources when the plan’s instigation is required.