<<snipped>> I cannot see how they could possibly justify such an increase <<snipped>> If you've ever tried to cost work, I think you'd end up with the impression that they could easily charge more. Somewhere there's a costing on the web that works out the time taken to process the order, multiplies it by the employee's pay rate per minute and adds in the postage. That's way off the mark - for a start you need to add in all the stuff that the employer pays (such as NI, etc). Then there's the building costs, microfilming costs (where approp), etc. Producing certificates for FH simply cannot be done in marginal costs (i.e. the building, people and facilities would be there anyway). Think about it - what possible reason, apart from FH, is there to store, film and print vital certificates over (say) 110y old? FH really must contribute 90-odd percent of the certificate ordering traffic at the GRO (that's from the Department of Guesswork, by the way). And as Brad said, spread the increase over the 7 years, when all those costs have been going up, and it's not dramatically out of the range of inflation. What I find quite astonishing is that the cost in a local registrar's office is going to be a few coppers less than the GRO price - given that so many of them don't have stuff on microfilm and give superb service, I'm just crossing my fingers and thanking them and my lucky stars. Adrian B