Our community newsletter puts a spotlight on people who have gone above and beyond in their efforts to support CRVS programmes in Asia and the Pacific, raise awareness of CRVS issues or lead CRVS improvement efforts in their home country or in the region. This month, we would like to dedicate this issue of Insight to Russell Burnard.
What is your current title and role?
I’m the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for New Zealand. I also have the role of General Manager, Operations in the Regulatory and Identity Services Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). This means I deal with Civil Registry services, Passports, Citizenship and digital identity services. In New Zealand, DIA is the home of civil registration decisions.
Can you please share with us a particular experience which highlighted the importance of CRVS to you?
A really early example in my time as Registrar-General was an interaction with a mother whose son had passed away on the high seas and there was a debate about which country would register the death. We finally managed to get an appropriate recognition that the death could be recorded. This took many months of engagement with NZ and other nations. The mother spoke to us after the registration, thanking us for our efforts. She described that she had been unable - without appropriate registration of the death – to gain probate and manage the financial implications of her son’s passing. The lack of our registration (which was a very complex one) meant she couldn’t manage those practical matters which meant she couldn’t begin the process of managing emotional grief.
This was the first time I saw the direct impact on a person where the ‘normal process’ couldn’t work. Most of our interactions are straightforward but there are daily instances of problems with birth, death, adoption, marriage records that my staff work on every day. Managing these more difficult cases lawfully and empathetically is so important for our customers and our staff.
How are you currently involved in CRVS improvements?
As Registrar-General, I’m involved in reviewing all suggestions for business improvement and changes to operational policy. I work with DIA’s policy team to address any updates or other changes to legislation and regulations, and I keep in touch with key groups providing input to our registers (e.g. funeral directors, marriage celebrants, midwives). I also keep a sharp eye on our ongoing maintenance of technology systems to support civil registration services.
Probably my biggest role in CRVS improvements for New Zealand is in guiding and providing oversight to a major project to replace our ageing civil registration computer system and provide better and more efficient services. This is still in very early stages, seeking government approval to put forward a detailed business case for investment.
I also work with other jurisdictions in Australia and the Pacific – particularly NZ Realm countries (Cook Island, Niue, Tokelau) – to improve registration outcomes across the wider region. One current focus is to facilitate information sharing, particularly death and change of name details for individuals who were born in one jurisdiction and then changed name or status in another. This will help to detect and deter attempts to commit identity fraud using civil registration records.
Which advice would you give to others trying to improve CRVS systems?
There is no silver bullet, no failsafe solution when thinking about a high quality, resilient CRVS. I tend to think about the following domains:
a) Legislation – is it fit for purpose? Does it reflect current country’s norms? What is being considered by your Parliament?
b) Customers – who are you serving? How do you make it easy for customers to comply with legal requirements? What services do they want from you? How do you maintain trust that data collected is secure and is used for permitted purposes? How do you reach hard-to-reach communities?
c) People – how are you recruiting and training your staff? What development and training do you put in place to enhance their performance and ensure consistency of decision making? How do you encourage feedback to improve processes and systems you use?
d) Processes – how do you establish robust, lawful, trustworthy and consistent processes? What are your business continuity, cybersecurity, privacy protection and disaster recovery approaches?
e) Technology – how do you maximise the use of technology? How do you create safe data sharing models (privacy and security centric)? What are your long-term investment approaches?
f) Relationships – you are part of a national system of statistics; how do you engage with Health, Statistics, etc.? How do you engage with communities of interest – midwifes, funeral directors, indigenous communities, celebrants etc.? How do you engage with other nations and bodies (e.g. for us Australia, Realm, SPC and Pacific Islands, ESCAP etc.)?
A good CRVS team is consistently trying to improve across all these domains – consistent with your own political and cultural environment.
