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Best Practice Guide

3rd September 2001

About us

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), set up by an Act of Parliament of 1854, is a Scottish administrative department headed by the Registrar General, who is appointed by Scotland's First Minister but reports independently to the Scottish Parliament.

The Department's main functions include:

the administration of civil registration of births, deaths and marriages
making arrangements for taking periodic censuses of Scotland's population and preparing and publishing demographic and other statistics
making available public records about individuals to customers (including genealogists)
maintaining for the Scottish Government the National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR) of patients.

From Census and civil registration sources GROS holds a large amount of geographically referenced information about Scotland's population. GROS were also pioneers in the use of mapping of postcodes for statistical purposes, and maintain maps and indexes relating postcodes to other types of area in Scotland. This information is valued by a broad range of organisations in both the public and private sectors and assists them in providing their services.

Standards of Service

We publish separate standard of service statements covering our registration and our statistical and geographical services.

Our standard of service - Statistical and Geographical Services includes descriptions of our statistical activities, our relationship with customers and what customers can expect. It also states that we endeavour to conform to the standards of good practice promoted by the Geographic Information Charter Standard Statement.

Enquiries

Please see our geography enquiries page if you need any help or information.