From September new registrations for the MPS service will be at personal level. After the first month of collecting new registrations (start of October 2007) there will be three versions of the MPS file.

1. MPS Original - This is the state of the existing MPS file as of September 2007. It will contain registrations at a surname level. The contents of this file will remain 'frozen' but subject to an annual clean.
2. MPS Personal - This is the new format MPS file containing new entries at a personal level. This will be updated monthly
3. MPS Household - This file will be available for one year and updated monthly. It contains new registrations (as contained in the Personal File) but extracted to Household (i.e. Surname) level. Thus the file will be in the same format as the 'Original' file. This is to allow licencees to continue using the old style file format if required whilst updating IT systems and procedures to use the new format.

Quick summary of changes

• The file names are changing (see information below)
• The 'Inclusion Categories' are being discontinued so there is no 'I' category in field 1
• The inclusions defined in field 3 and 4 will now always be blank - however the fields will remain to maintain a consistent field count between Personal and Original file formats.
• The Personal file changes the 'Initial' field to a 'Forename' field.
• Most of the field lengths in the Personal file are increasing.
• The Houshold file contains the same registrations as the Personal file but without forename data and is of the same file format as the Original file. Where more than one person with the same surname is registered in a household only one entry is shown at that 'surname' level.
• The 'R' category (Remove) in field 1 becomes 'P' (Remove Person). This is to distinguish entries registered at household level on the original file with those registered at personal level in the new file.

Technical specifications for each of the file formats can be found from the following links. (Note: For the format of the current MPS file, available up to the start of October 2007, refer to the 'MPS Original' link)

• MPS Orginal
• MPS Personal
• MPS Household

The full database can also be downloaded via SFTP. If you have subscribed to receive the full downloads, you can follow the instructions below to download the MPS database in compressed or uncompressed format, Fixed or Comma Delimited.

1. SFTP to ftp.mps-online.org.uk and type in your username and password when prompted.

2. You can retrieve the readme.txt document found in your home directory, which will describe the files available for download.

3. The table below describes the full database files that you can retrieve and their location.

IMPORTANT From the Start of October 2007, the filenames for the MPS will change. These changes are detailed below

Filenames up to end of September 2007