Vital Events statistics are based on the official registration records for births, stillbirths, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths. The data pass through a number of processes before becoming usable for analysis.
Records are reviewed:
at registration, by the registrar and the informant (the person registering the event)
afterwards, by NRS staff who check for common errors and inconsistencies.
Most details are provided by the people registering the event and are entered directly into NRS Forward Electronic Register (FER) system by the Registrar as soon as it is given.
Corrections can be made if mistakes are found later. While not every detail can be independently verified, multiple checks are in place to keep errors to a minimum and maintain the overall quality of the data.
Registration checks
Registrars must confirm that an event has taken place before it can be registered.
This is done using official documents, such as:
Registrars take steps to make sure:
events are not registered twice
false registrations do not occur
events are not missed, including thorough checks with hospitals, care homes and other institutions.
If an event is not registered within the legal time limit, reminders are issued and NRS will investigate.
It is not possible to guarantee that every event is registered, but missed cases are expected to be very rare.
A marriage or civil partnership cannot take place legally without official involvement beforehand and authorisation on the day. This means they cannot be legal and unregistered, or registered more than once.
When the Registrar enters an event into the system, the FER system checks for any apparent errors and omissions (e.g., fields which are blank, but should have been completed), and displays the appropriate error/warning messages.
In some cases, the Registrar may be able to obtain the required information from NRS' existing records if the Informant cannot provide it or is unsure about it. For example, if someone registering the death of an elderly relative is unable to provide details of the relative's parents, the Registrar may be able to get them from NRS' records of the relative's birth and/or marriage (if relative was born and/or married in Scotland).
Once all the information has been recorded, any typing errors should be picked up when the Informant and the Registrar read through a copy of the details which will appear in the register before it is signed by both the Informant and the Registrar. At that stage, the record is locked but corrections can be made later, if errors are discovered.
Post registration checks
Checking the number of events
The statistical database’s numbers of events is checked against the overall total numbers obtained from FER. Any differences are investigated and corrected, for example if a record is missing or duplicated.
Checking information entered at registration
Certain details, such as geographic and residence codes, are entered by registrars at registration. These are then checked by NRS Vital Events staff for errors or inconsistencies and corrected where needed. All records are reviewed by experienced staff before being finalised.
Occupation and industry coding
In Scotland, occupation information is collected through birth, stillbirth, death, marriage and civil partnership registrations each year. Codes for the occupations are subsequently added to the statistical copies of the records for births, stillbirths and deaths (but not for marriages and civil partnerships).
Occupation information is coded with automated tools using the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) coding index into the Vital Events statistical database.
Checking published tables
Published tables are checked to make sure:
totals match across tables,
sub‑groups add up correctly,
figures for quarters match annual totals,
any discrepancies are identified, investigated and explained, and
rates are calculated using the correct population data.
Figures are also compared with earlier publications to make sure trends are reasonable, and cause‑of‑death codes are checked to ensure they are valid.
Together, these checks help ensure that Vital Events statistics are complete, accurate and consistent.
