The General Directorate of Civil Status: A new way to offer services

To be abreast of the accelerating developments in all the surrounding fields, change is necessary. Ways to offer services to the public have changed. What is most sought now is the beneficiary’s satisfaction through the introduction of new ways that are not complex; do not involve delay; and a routine that customers find pleasing. As a service institution of excellence, the General Directorate of Civil Status has adopted a new way that marks a radical change in the pattern of offering services to the beneficiaries. You might wonder how. Let’s look together at the two pictures:


Which of these situations would you prefer in case you applied for an ID card, for example? Of course, some would say that they were inconvenienced greatly with queuing in front of the registrar for long periods of time for up to half-an-hour or more, made even worse by having to wait in a small and cramped office. Now, with the General Directorate of Civil Status, you can bid farewell to the long queues and the traditional ways of offering services. The new way saves the customer’s time and efforts. Once again, you might ask yourself: HOW?

The following comparison will give you the answer you seek:



1. ID Card Issue:

· Previously, an applicant completed a pre-prepared form, brought the required documents and a number of personal photos, one for the card and the others to be kept in the file, and stood in front of the registrar, for as long as his/her turn took. When it was their turn, the registrar entered their data on the records. Then the applicant paid the fees and received a receipt, after which he/she waited until called to sign the card. Anything, from as trivial as having no ball pen at hand, would delay the procedures. Therefore, the applicant had to sign quickly without being given a chance to revise the data entered on the card. Finally, he/she waited for the card to be laminated and then delivered. Errors discovered later in the data entered on the card would take the applicant back to square one. They would have to go through the whole procedure once again just to get them corrected. The customer would then realize that two or even three hours had been spent just applying to get an ID card.

· At present, and with the General Directorate of Civil Status, things are very different. Standing in long queues in front of the registrar is a thing of the past. Instead, the applicant takes a seat facing the registrar who enters the data quickly in the computer system which issues a Testing Page that the applicant revises before the data is finally entered on the card. No pen is needed to sign as the applicant signs electronically now. In addition, the card has the applicant’s driving license integrated in it and an electronic chip containing the bearer’s electronic fingerprint and personal photo, passport and driving license data, address and phone numbers. Moreover, it is a highly secure and confidential.

2. Civil Event Registration:

· The task of issuing official important documents has long been assigned to several government authorities. Data on these official documents is entered by hand, which increases the chances of error, which sometimes lead to the complete discardment of the document and its cancellation by the registrar. The applicant would then have to seek a replacement and the whole process would then take further time and money. The applicant would also have to endure the inconvenience of being at the back of the queue.

· Here again, things have greatly changed. Customers’ time and effort are saved, as all the documents pertaining to the civil status are now issued at one place by one authority - The General Directorate of Civil Status. All you need now is a notification of the event from the competent authority. The new documents, such as the birth certificate, are printed on high quality long lasting paper. Nothing is scrawled in hand on the document which is dry-stamped. The beneficiary can choose the number of copies he/she wants of the document. Thus, the applicant does not have to queue up in front of the registrar; and he/she receives his/her document in the shortest possible time with the least possible effort.
The General Directorate of Civil Status has its own standards of measuring performance excellence. Communication channels with beneficiaries are open. Besides, they can always drop notes, send letters and enquiries through the civil register. These will be considered carefully and will receive favourable responses. It is all part of our new brief to deliver high quality public services.
 

Civilian Officer \ Yahya Amur Al-Hamimi
Directorate General of Civil Status

Civil Status: Future Vision

The use of Civil Status System now and then

Article (1) of the Civil Status Law has defined the event as ‘Any Civil Status event of birth, death, marriage, divorce, citizenship, residence, and any other event therefrom.’
An average person’s life is so packed with events that we can not elaborate on them all. However, we can touch on the four most important ones with some accuracy: birth, death, marriage and divorce. Owing to their significance, these important events had to be registered and documented by some competent authorities to guarantee the rights of the concerned person. Thus different authorities were entrusted with the task of registering different events. Hence, the Ministry of Health specialized in issuing birth and death certificates and established rules and methods to follow while registering these events. Most birth and death events occur in hospitals and health centers where the transactions are usually carried out. As for those events that occur outside the Sultanate, the transactions are accomplished at the Embassy or the Consulate of Oman in the country where the events take place. The Ministry of Justice, on the other hand, issues marriage contracts and divorce documents in accordance with the adopted procedures that emerge from the tenets of Islamic Shari’a. Most marriage and divorce events are documented.

Nowadays, it is difficult to give an accurate number for any of the four civil events. As far as divorce is concerned, for example, there are many enquiries related, say, to divorce rate in the Sultanate; its reasons as well as the age at which most divorces occur. A lot more questions may be raised by researchers and experts pertaining to the geographic movement of the population in the Sultanate. Accurate birth statistics help us learn a lot more about the demographic development and the geographic movement of the population in the Sultanate as well as social, health, or other trends.

Why Civil Status?

One might ask, ‘How important is civil status?’, ‘Why are the four civil status events registered at the General Directorate of Civil Status?’, ‘Does the Royal Oman Police have the same essential elements and experience as the ministries concerned with the four civil events registration?’, ‘What will happen to all those files and documents held by those ministries?’ A lot more questions may be asked by the citizens to know what the benefits of the Civil Status System’s implementation will be.

The concept of the project aims at establishing an independent system for civil registration, capable of storing and retrieving data pertaining to the citizens and the residents as well. It is based on a data base that ensures the entry of the four civil status events, and includes the new ID and Resident card system. At this level, the importance of the civil status is obvious in so far as it creates an informative data base including data pertaining to the four civil events, the ID and the Resident cards. With such a data base available at our fingertips, storing and retrieving data related to both the citizens and residents becomes a much lighter and easier task to accomplish. The introduction of the new electronic card to replace the present one makes the system as important for the private sector as it is for the government sector and the citizens.

The completion of the data base allows many government authorities to take advantage of the available information and use it for development purposes, sensible planning of future projects, and quick decision making. This lies basically in the rapid retrieval of the information and statistics pertaining to the population and its geographic distribution without the need for new funds to collect data. The Ministry of Education is a perfect example to explain the idea of taking advantage of the system. Accurate statistics of births and their geographic distribution, that is birth distribution among the different regions of the Sultanate, enable the Ministry to determine the number of girls and boys who will join school in 7 years, how they will be geographically distributed. Based on such accurate information, the Ministry is able to make the right decisions in the right time in so far as providing the adequate number of schools, teachers and all the other required services. It is obvious that this contributes to the good future planning and provides citizens with a high standard of service. Other government and private institutions benefit from the civil status system in exactly the same way. Linking these institutions electronically to the General Directorate of Civil Status enables them to have easy access to the data base in order to get the information they need. To ensure the secrecy and the confidentiality of the personal data, the General Directorate of Civil Status monitors the information that can be accessed by each of the authorities so that they get nothing more than their requirements. In addition, each authority is enabled to enter more data in its specific file without the interference of the General Directorate of Civil Status to guarantee the confidentiality of the personal data pertaining to the person’s relation with that institution.

The Civil Number, the citizen and the resident

Carrying no documents whatsoever when dealing with government or private institutions is hardly conceivable. Yet, it is an objective that the General Directorate of Civil Status is trying to achieve. First, linking all these institutions electronically to the General Directorate of Civil Status allows them to have access to the data base. Second, each person registered in the Civil Register is issued a Civil Number that serves as the master key for the competent authorities to have access to his/her personal data. This number is recorded on the ID and Resident cards. It is unique, and feeding it to a system leads to accessing the personal data of the individual.  

Civilian Officer \ Salim bin Suleiman Al-Kindi
Directorate General of Civil Status