Death database problems

The Office of National Statistics cannot explain why testing did not pick up the problem

Half of the 420 registration offices have been taken off the £6m Register Online (Ron) system because of performance issues.

Despite testing and pilots last year, problems started as soon as the technology was rolled out across England and Wales in mid-March.

The extra load has left the system slow-running and often timing out when registrars are trying to register births and deaths.

The Office of National Statistics, which developed the technology in collaboration with supplier Mantech, says the timescale for getting users back onto the system is not yet known.

It was also unable to explain how the scalability issues did not show up during the testing phase of the project.

Ron has been in use for registration of civil partnerships since 2005.