Registers: becoming a custodian
Find out how to become the custodian of a register.
Registers are reliable lists of information managed by one custodian from the government organisation responsible for maintaining the register’s data. The custodian works with the GOV.UK Registers team to look after the register, keeping it accurate and up-to-date.
As the register is managed by the custodian, service teams can be confident that the data is current and trustworthy when they use it to build digital services.
How to become a custodian
To be considered a register’s custodian by the Government Digital Service (GDS), you must be the owner or authority for collecting, storing or publishing the data on behalf of your government organisation.
Custodians will need to know about all data changes and are in charge of integrating changes when they’re required. They can make timely updates to their register using the Manage your registers tool.
To be a register’s custodian, you must be:
- the person with the authority to make changes to the data
- knowledgeable about the data collection process in your organisation
- available as the GDS point of contact to create a register
Your responsibility
Being a custodian means you’re responsible for:
- providing raw data to be cleaned by the GOV.UK Registers team
- checking the clean data before publishing
- making sure the register is kept up-to-date and accurate
- responding to all user feedback
- maintaining necessary policy or legislation updates
- assigning a representative to act as a custodian in your absence
Support and training
GDS will help custodians by:
- cleaning and formatting the raw data
- checking for unofficial or duplicate lists
- advising on how to retain your data as the most accurate source
- working together to create, build and improve a register before publishing
The GOV.UK Registers team offers support from the point a register is being created until it’s a service-ready published register.
We have a simple process to help custodians to understand and respond to all user feedback, and are keen to publicise register updates with blogs and networking. Full training will be provided to use our Manage your registers tool helping custodians and their teams to make updates at any time.