Register offices hit in new IT crisis

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More than half of the country's 3,000 register officers have been ordered to stop using the network.

Bereaved families have been asked to give details of their loved ones' deaths twice, after data was lost and multiple certificates could not be issued in many areas.

Registrars have been told it could take "many months" to fix the £6 million system. Meanwhile they should revert to their old computers. It means none of the daily births, deaths and marriages will be centrally recorded.

Details of the IT chaos come just days after a fresh row erupted over its new online application system for junior doctors. Ministers have also faced criticism over computer problems at the Passport Agency, Child Support Agency and Criminal Records Bureau in recent years.

A spokesman for the Office for National Statistics, which oversees the register offices, said: "We are going full steam ahead in trying to sort out the problem." However, registrars say there is no funding for overtime to enter the information once the system has been fixed.