The cost of BMD certificates from the General Records Office (GRO) of England and Wales is quite expensive (£9.25 at time of writing) but what is preventing the obvious streamlining of this?

The GRO, now part of the Identity and Passport Service, only send copies of certificates by post, and they're on fancy paper with an official stamp at the bottom. This works OK, even with international postage, although it usually takes a couple of weeks for them to arrive. Even with this cost, though, the GRO claim the process is losing money (hence the previous price increase).

There have been a number of discussions about doing electronic, research-only certificates by email, and even a recent petition (BMD ePetition) but I'm not aware of anything happening in response.

The advantages seem obvious to me: digital copies mean savings on paper, printing and postage. There must be some type of electronic scan in process now so why not persist the images and index them for potential further use. This would contribute to an image database from which the GRO could leverage further monies in the future. Furthermore, since people (including me) would be more inclined to buy extra certificates at the lower cost then the GRO might actually make more money, and also save further money by having to do less manual searches on behalf of people.

Is the lack of movement due to bureaucracy, legislation, or some other obstacle?