Chamber and committees

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland - Introduction

Letter from the Keeper of the Register of Scotland, 30 August 2021

Dear Ms Baker

ECONOMY AND FAIR WORK COMMITTEE – REGISTERS OF SCOTLAND

I am writing to congratulate you on your recent appointment as Convener of the Economy and Fair Work Committee and introduce myself as Chief Executive and Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (RoS). As you may be aware, RoS is directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament, and it is the EFW committee who scrutinises our performance.

RoS have historically kept the Committee updated on our work by the means of a quarterly written update, as well as ad-hoc correspondence as necessary (further to my annual Committee appearance in person). I would be grateful if you could confirm if you are content to continue receiving this quarterly written update, or if you have any alternative preferred means of receiving this information going forward.

I thought that it would be useful to provide a short update on key RoS activities since my last update to the previous EEFW Committee:

Emergency Coronavirus Provisions and Plans for Permanency

The provisions related to my functions contained within the two emergency Coronavirus Acts were amongst those recently extended for an initial 6 month period, and with the potential for a further extension through to 30 September 2022, by the Coronavirus (Extension and Expiry) (Scotland) Act 2021. The provisions in question enable registration in four of my registers (the Land Register, Register of Sasines, Register of Inhibitions and Register of Judgements) to proceed on the basis of electronic copies of paper documents transmitted to me through an online portal – the Digital Submission Service (DSS). Since launch, RoS have received extremely positive feedback from customers in relation to the DSS, and as a result, ran a public consultation in December 2020 on behalf of the Scottish Government on proposals to place the DSS on a permanent statutory footing. The consultation analysis reveals strong support with 223 respondents contributing to a positive response rate of >93% for each of the 16 proposals in the paper.

As you will be aware, Ministers have now published a wider consultation on reviewing the legislative powers that have supported the Scottish Government’s response to Covid. With that in mind, my officials are continuing to work with SG officials on the next steps for any future legislation affecting my registers. As Keeper I remain supportive of the proposals set out in the consultation of December 2020 which were strongly endorsed by our customers and stakeholders.

Corporate Plan 2021 – 2026

Our 2021-2026 Corporate Plan was published in April 2021 – reflecting on the impact of COVID-19, setting out our strategic objectives, and defining our key work priorities for delivering the plan going forward.

Customer Satisfaction and Key Performance Indicators

In our final correspondence with the previous EEFW committee there were two pieces of information which were not available at the time of writing, and which I promised to follow up with. These were our 2021 customer satisfaction survey results - where I am pleased to say we saw an increase of 4% to 87% (against a target of 80%), and were awarded the Customer Service Excellence Award - and our latest Key Performance indicator data, for which we have now published our January to March 2021, and April to June 2021 figures.

RoS Committee Introduction and Virtual Visit

I have previously welcomed Committee members to our Edinburgh offices to see the work we do in more detail. Those in attendance found the visit to be informative and useful, and given the new membership of the Committee I would like to extend an invite once again to members who may not be as familiar with our work, to attend a virtual visit with RoS.

This would take a similar format to our recent RoS Breakfast Briefings, which were provided for MSPs and their staff members, and would additionally provide an opportunity to discuss more strategic issues and answer any questions members may have in relation to RoS and how we plan to meet our corporate objectives. We would be happy to extend this invite to the Committee as a group or run smaller individual sessions depending on interest and availability. If this would be of interest to you, please let me know and we will make the necessary arrangements.

Committee members may also be interested in joining our upcoming public event – “RoS: Working for you” - where we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of the last year and detail what we have delivered for our customers and citizens. This event is taking place on 30 September 2021 from 1200-1300hrs and members can register their place via the enclosed link.

I look forward to the opportunity to appear in front of the Committee in due course, and keeping you updated on Register of Scotland’s work. If there is anything you would like to know about any aspect of RoS work in the meanwhile, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely