Scotland is at the forefront of protecting public records in the UK. Earlier this year, it announced that the Public Records (Scotland) Bill aims to protect and organize public records for the future.
The Shaw Report of 2007, aka the Historical Abuse Systemic Review found due to poor record keeping, it was sometimes hard for a citizen to search public records. This means that is would be difficult to know how to find someone, trace a family history, find medical records, find a birth certificate, find a death certificate, or even find a marriage certificate.
The Keeper of the Records of Scotland would be in charger of seeing that the local authorities, the NHS, the Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Court Service, and other government offices keep proper records and ensure that records are available to the public when appropriate.
Currently, online databases are improving access to public records.
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