The Land Registry was established as a separate government department in 1862 and was the first of the Lord Chancellor's departments to become an Executive Agency (July 1990). We are self-financing and make no call on public funds to carry out our core business. In April 1993 we became a trading fund. Our main function is to maintain and develop a register of title to freehold and leasehold land in England and Wales. Title is guaranteed by the state. We are also responsible for the registration of certain third party rights under the Land Charges Act 1972 and the Agricultural Credits Act 1928.
The Land Registry operates through 24 district land registries located throughout England and Wales, a London-based Headquarters, and a Land Charges Department and a Computer Services Division (both based in Plymouth).
The Land Registry holds over 18 million registered titles to land - from major estates to your next home.
The land register is a record of all land registrations in England and Wales. Each register of title has its own number (the title number) and contains a description of the property, the name and address of the registered proprietor, and other details such as mortgages and rights that may affect the property adversely. We also produce a title plan, showing the location and extent of each registered title.
Once a piece of land is registered:
In addition, anyone who suffers financial loss because of errors in the register, office copies and official searches of the register has the right, subject to certain conditions, to receive compensation from the Land Registry.
Since December 1990, the land register has been open to the public. For a fee, anyone can inspect the register, find out the name and address of the current owner of any registered property or obtain a copy of any registered title. The growing demand for land and property information is apparent from the wide interest shown in our Residential Property Price Reports.
We produce free Residential Property Price Reports which provide average prices and volumes of sales for all counties or county boroughs in England and Wales. These are available on our website at: www.landreg.gov.uk
We also provide more specific bespoke reports for local authorities, postal areas, districts and sectors on request, for a fee. Information on this is available from our property information centre
(Tel: +44 (0) 151 473 6010).
In keeping with the Modernising Government White Paper and the Cabinet Office guidance on the review arrangements for agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies, the latest review of the Land Registry was completed in April 2001. The report was published in June 2001 and recommended that the status of the Land Registry should not change. An interdepartmental steering group examined the report's wider recommendations and developed a substantial programme of work to carry them forward.
The Lord Chancellor announced in Parliament on 12 December 2001 that the Government had approved the programme of work. This will involve us working closely with the Lord Chancellor's and other government departments, as well as with others involved in the wider field of conveyancing. The Lord Chancellor advised that those elements of the programme that the Land Registry would take forward would be delivered through the new 10-year Strategic Business Plan. Subject to ministerial approval, this Plan will be published in spring 2002 (see also Section 3.X).
One of our major policy developments, which goes beyond the period covered by this report, is a system of largely paperless electronic conveyancing, which was recommended in the consultative document Land Registration for the 21st Century, published jointly by the Law Commission and the Land Registry in September 1998 (see also Section 3.X). We believe that the system offers tremendous opportunities for improving the processes for buying and selling property.
An interdepartmental steering group is guiding the work on this new system. We have demonstrated a model of an electronic conveyancing system to Members of both Houses of Parliament, conveyancing practitioners, mortgage lenders and other interested groups. Using their feedback, we are preparing a revised model, and this will form the basis of a wide consultation exercise in 2002. Our e-conveyancing Task Force will take forward the work necessary to introduce a re-engineered fully electronic conveyancing system to England and Wales.
Once we have completed our consultation, we will assess the project fully, looking particularly at its estimated cost and the anticipated benefits for business and for the citizen of full e-conveyancing. The exercise will also determine the system's design, scope and requirements. As a precursor to the full system, we will develop an e-lodgement service for applications, which will enable our customers to become accustomed to dealing with us electronically. Our first pilot is scheduled for summer 2002.
Electronic conveyancing requires changes to the legislative framework regulating dealings with land and registration of title. The early stages of the development may be taken forward using the powers to amend legislation by order under section 8 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000. The Lord Chancellor's Department has been consulting with interested bodies on a draft electronic conveyancing order under that section. A full analysis of the results of that consultation exercise was published on 10 December 2001.
Links
Land Registration for the 21st Century: A Conveyancing Revolution (Law Com No 271) - a joint report of the Law Commission and Land Registry, published July 2001.
A Land Registration Bill, based on the proposals in Land Registration for the 21st Century, was introduced in the House of Lords in June 2001. The Bill completed its final stages in Parliament and received Royal Assent on 26 February 2002. The Act will completely replace the Land Registration Act 1925 and provide a framework for a full system of electronic conveyancing.
All current Land Registration Rules, Orders and Regulations will also need to be replaced. The new subordinate legislation is being drafted and will be the subject of wide consultation in the summer of 2002. The intention is to bring the new Act and the supporting rules into force in the second half of 2003. This allows time for Land Registry staff and conveyancing practitioners to receive the necessary training and education in the changes in practice and procedures.
We publish a set of explanatory leaflets and practice advice leaflets (in paper format and on our website) to provide practical advice to practitioners and other customers. All of this material will need to be revised and republished (largely in electronic form) to take account of the effects of the new legislation. We also conduct Open Days and similar events at our district land registries and at other venues to encourage interchange with professional conveyancers.
We are well on the way to meeting the Prime Minister's target for electronic delivery of all our key services by 2005. We are on target for meeting our Service Delivery Agreement (SDA) target for 2002-03 of 60 per cent electronic delivery of all our services. We have already achieved our SDA target of 97 per cent of titles in the land register being capable of electronic delivery.
Our e-business strategic plan takes into account the recommendations from Electronic Government Services for the 21st Century (Performance and Innovation Unit) and Successful IT: Modernising Government in Action.
Links
Electronic Government Services for the 21st Century is available on the Cabinet Office's website at www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/innovation/2000/delivery/intro.htm
Successful IT: Modernising Government in Action is available from the Office of the e-Envoy.
Our information systems strategy for the next two years and beyond centres on the following initiatives:
We completed a major upgrade of the IT infrastructure to a client-server architecture in June 2001, under the Public Private Partnership agreement with Compaq.
All filed plan records were converted to electronic form by August 2000, and we will convert all remaining registers by the end of 2002-03.
Land Registry Direct is an online service that provides electronic access to Land Registry data. From their own offices, authorised customers can request Office Copies, lodge Official Searches, view over 18 million registers and title plans, and electronically conduct an ever-widening range of land registration transactions.
There are already more than 15,000 end-users (from nearly 4,000 different organisations) signed up to use the service. Approximately 100 new organisations apply to join each month. Growth in the use of some types of transaction has been astonishing, especially during 2001. For example, from a very modest start when the service was first launched in June 2000, well over 85,000 electronic notifications of discharge (of mortgages) are now made every month by lending institutions. November 2001 was our busiest month ever: there were more than 208,000 Register Views and more than 70,000 Official Searches.
We want to make sure that we can meet the current and projected future growth in the use of our service. Thus, in conjunction with our private sector IT partner, we recently invested in a substantial upgrade to the system architecture and network configuration. This upgrade will pave the way for introducing yet more facilities and services during 2002-03.
The project to computerise our paper-based Index Maps began on 1 September 2001, and teams are now operational at all 24 district land registries. There are 450,000 paper Index Maps, at various scales, covering England and Wales, and these contain approximately 18 million registered titles. These will all be converted into a vector polygon electronic format over a two-year period, ending in March 2004.
Vector polygons will facilitate improvements internally in processing searches and other applications, and create an improved gateway to our electronic records and services, permitting full access to map-based information for Land Registry Direct and LR On-line customers.
Our work on a National Land Information Service (NLIS), which began in 1999, is a prime example of effective partnership between central and local government and the private sector.
The idea behind NLIS is to promote the electronic delivery of a wide range of land- and property-related information to a wide audience. The initial target is to deliver integrated land and property information search facilities, to support the conveyancing process in England and Wales. The two key datasets are held by the Land Registry and local authorities.
In September 2000, Macdonald Dettwiler Associates (MDA) was awarded the NLIS hub infrastructure licence. The licence was awarded by the contracting authority, Local Government Information House (LGIH), a company created by local government.
MDA completed the NLIS hub on schedule in February 2001. The NLIS infrastructure comprises a single hub and three licensed channels. The three channel licences were awarded to NLIS Searchflow, TM NLIS Search and TransAction Online, between January and March 2001. The NLIS channels opened for business during the summer of 2001.
Live operations began in the spring of 2001 by accepting NLIS applications, which were printed centrally at the hub and dispatched by postal services. The system was upgraded in July 2001 to allow electronic delivery. In October 2001, the range of services was extended and a further release took place on 25 March 2002. The next release is due to be introduced in October 2002.
LGIH continues to sign up NLIS data providers, particularly local authorities, whose information is required to supply an integrated land and property search in support of the conveyancing process.
We are taking part in a project, approved and part-funded by the European Commission as part of the European Union eContent programme, in partnership with other European land registration organisations. The project is to develop a prototype to demonstrate the viability of a European Land Information Service, by June 2004. We will continue to represent the UK on the steering group of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Working Party on Land Administration and promote its interests overseas.
We are committed to the highest standards of public service, to achieving performance targets set by the Lord Chancellor's Department and HM Treasury and to providing value for money. We work hard to deliver high-quality services promptly and at low cost. In 2001, we were awarded our fourth consecutive Charter Mark, one of only a very few organisations to achieve this so far.
Our key financial, efficiency, customer service and developmental targets and results for 2000-01 are set out in our Annual Report and Accounts 2000-01.
Links
Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2000-01, available from: The Stationery Office or on our website at www.landreg.gov.uk
We are constantly working to improve the efficiency of our services. With Treasury agreement, we aim to reduce unit costs in real terms to £21.43 by the end of 2004-05. The figures shown for 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05 in Table 1 (Unit costs in cash terms) are our milestones (in cash terms) towards achieving that target.
Target
In 2001-02 to achieve a cost per unit in real terms of £23.95.
We have achieved our target.
| 1999/00 (actual) |
2000/01 (actual) |
2001/02 (milestone) |
2001/02 (forecast) |
2002/03 (milestone) |
2003/04 (milestone) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £26.88 | £30.63 | £29.95 | £26.40 | £29.61 | £29.13 |
| The cost of completing each unit of work is calculated by dividing the Land Registry's operational expenditure in any period by the number of units of work completed during that period. | |||||
We work hard to improve the speed and accuracy of the services we provide.
Target
In 2001-02: 80 per cent of all registrations to be processed in 25 working days, and 98.5 per cent of registrations to be handled free of error in each year.
We have achieved both these targets.
Target
In 2001-02 to achieve a 6 per cent return on average capital employed.
We have achieved this target.
Our business is very much demand-led. The main external factors which influence the volume of transactions we handle are:
Underlying these factors are general economic conditions such as mortgage interest rates and the ratio of house prices to wages and salaries.
Our unit output (actual and planned) is shown in Table 2.
The number of registered titles held in England and Wales, on which transactions can be made, was 18.04 million at the end of 2001-02. The forecast for the end of 2002-03 is that approximately 18.9 million titles will have been registered.
| 1996-97 (actual) |
1997-98 (actual) |
1998-99 (actual) |
1999-00 (actual) |
2000-01 (actual) |
2001-02 (actual) |
2002-03 (forecast) |
2003-04 (plan) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Work received | 6,351 | 6,922 | 7,524 | 8,790 | 9,400 | 10,682 | 10,400 | 10,900 |
| Output | 6,339 | 6,847 | 7,341 | 8,764 | 9,194 | 10,756 | 10,400 | 10,900 |
We have carried out formal customer surveys every year since 1989 and we include areas for improvement in our planning processes, where practicable. The Customer Satisfaction Survey for 2001 showed that overall satisfaction with Land Registry services continues to be exceptionally high: over 99 per cent of our customers are satisfied; of these, 40 per cent are very satisfied.
When comparing the Land Registry with other public service and private sector organisations, 84 per cent of respondents rated us as much better or better than other public sector organisations; 75 per cent rated us as much better or better than private sector organisations.
We also carry out surveys on specific areas of service such as Land Registry Direct and the provision of services in the Welsh language. We conduct monthly sample satisfaction surveys. Customers who visit Customer Information Centres at our local offices are invited to complete a satisfaction questionnaire.
We use the results of the annual survey to form a list of action points for the Customer Service Group to take forward. This group was established to formalise the policy and strategy for customer service, and to produce a long-term business plan to achieve continuous improvement in the quality of services for users.
We want to provide a service in which our customers can have full confidence. However, we do not always get it right first time. During the year ended 31 March 2001 we received 2,710 complaints, 85 per cent of which we responded to fully within our 5-day target.
We have an Independent Complaints Reviewer, Mrs Jodi Berg, who conducts impartial investigations of complaints from customers who are dissatisfied with the service they have received from us and are not satisfied by our internal complaints procedures. Where complaints are upheld, we may be required to make apologies and sometimes ex gratia payments. There may be recommendations for improvement, which we accept wherever possible.
The Independent Complaints Reviewer's annual report is available from: New Premier House, 150 Southampton Row, London WC1B 5AL (Tel: +44 (0) 20 7278 6251)
The knowledge and expertise of our staff are our major assets.
For information on our staff numbers, see Table A5.
We monitor recruitment to ensure that appointments are made as laid down in the Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Code, on the basis of fair and open competition and selection on merit. There is an outline of recruitment activity in our Annual Report and Accounts. Our recruitment processes focus on the competence requirements for individual posts, and our policy is to recruit to replace staff who have left.
We introduced assessment centres for appointments at junior executive level, and also use them for key senior posts and to fill vacancies for District Land Registrars.
Following the launch of the Managing Diversity strategy at the end of 2000, we introduced a programme of awareness training for managers to support valuing inclusion. This used actors to illustrate a range of practical diversity and discrimination issues facing managers.
Our diversity proofing of the appraisal system resulted in new guidance for managing and appraising part-time workers to ensure equality of opportunity. We are now proofing the recruitment process.
We are committed to a work-life balance and family-friendly policies, and are publicising the range of flexible work options available in a new booklet for all staff. We have expanded our childcare provision to aid recruitment and retention of staff with family responsibilities, in line with Government policy. This includes opening three new workplace nurseries, covering five of our business units. This brings our onsite provision to six nurseries. We have expanded our offsite nursery provision to cover three further business units.
We achieved whole agency recognition against the IiP standard in April 2000. We use a trained pool of staff to conduct annual internal post-recognition reviews, and we will be reassessed by an external assessor in 2003. We regard meeting the IiP standard as a minimum requirement: we use annual reviews to identify areas for improvement and to spread better practice in learning and development provision.
Working in partnership with ILEX Tutorial College Ltd (ITC), we have developed and introduced a distance learning course in Land Registration Law and Practice. The course was launched officially in September 2000, with 223 students enrolled from 26 Land Registry offices across England and Wales (including two students from the Isle of Man Registry). A further 254 students enrolled for the second year.
A key objective for the new qualification is to provide our staff with the opportunity to acquire an externally recognised qualification specifically designed to be directly relevant to their technical work. The course will also promote and strengthen technical knowledge and foster greater professionalism and quality of service.
The course leads to a one-year Certificate (foundation level, equivalent to GCSE A level) and a two-year Diploma (degree level).
We have developed our interchange strategy by appointing two non-executive directors to the Land Registry Board in 2001, initially for a period of two years. This is in keeping with the Government's 'Modernising Government' agenda.
Following the successful certification of the District Land Registry for Lancashire to ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management systems, we are now working towards certification at three more district land registries and Headquarters. We expect to achieve certification in April 2002, when these sites will be added to the scope of the District Land Registry for Lancashire certificate. Seven more business units are programmed to work towards accreditation in the next financial year, with the ultimate aim of all business units being certified by the end of 2005. Building on best practice gained from the sites previously certified, we anticipate continual environmental improvement, especially in our management of new buildings, utility consumption, paper consumption and waste management.
As we predicted in last year's report, energy consumption across the Registry increased in 2000-01, due to an agency-wide computerisation initiative that permitted significant productivity gains. Despite this increase, the deployment of energy-saving mitigation measures has enabled us, as directed by the Green Ministers' Committee, to continue to work towards our contribution to the Government's targets. We intend to benchmark consumption in terms of staff numbers and productivity in future years, rather than merely mapping it.
Links
Further information on the Land Registry can be found in:
HM Land Registry, Executive Framework Document 1995 (available from the Land Registry)
Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2000-01 (The Stationery Office)
The Land Registration Fees Order 2000 (available from the Land Registry)
HM Land Registry Residential Property Price Quarterly Reports (available from the Land Registry)