Chamber and committees

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

NRS is a member of the Institute of Customer Service and participates in an annual Business Benchmarking Survey. The survey focusses on evaluating customer satisfaction levels. In 2024, 85.7% of customers were satisfied with the services delivered by NRS, set against a public services national average of 73.6%.

When exploring any changes or improvements in service provision, NRS engages with customers through appropriate survey channels. NRS monitors customer use of services through quarterly reporting. NRS operates various social media platforms that are used to engage with the public and gather feedback.

NRS also continues to review its KPIs on a yearly basis to reflect use of services.

Scottish Government marketing teams do not specify inclusion of any specific media outlets to media agencies who prepare the media strategy and schedules based on audience to ensure advertising is as effective as possible and delivers high levels of reach for the investment. Therefore campaign budget is also a critical factor in media agencies determining whether smaller outlets, which deliver lower levels of reach in general, will be added to a media schedule.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

The following operating costs figures are provided from RoS annual report and accounts (which can be accessed via the RoS website www.ros.gov.uk)

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Registration service fees are set by the Registrar General for Scotland with the approval of the Scottish Ministers under The Registration Services (Fees, etc.) (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

Fees contained within the schedules were last amended in 2010 and 2022. These regulations provide instruction for the charges associated with accessing records through the Scotland’s People website.

The fees for inspecting, searching and issuing copies of any records transmitted to the Keeper of the Records of Scotland are set by the Court of Session with consent of Scottish Ministers under the Act of Sederunt (Fees in the National Archives of Scotland) 2005.

In 2022, the Registrar General for Scotland, with the approval of the Scottish Ministers, increased the fees payable for submission of a marriage notice and submission of a notice of a proposed civil partnership from £30 to £45 per party to the intended marriage or civil partnership.

All other statutory fees have remained unchanged since 2020.

The Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group undertakes an annual review of medical training establishments (the number of established training places in each specialty) and makes subsequent recommendations to Scottish Ministers around the need to expand in order to meet increased service demand and future anticipated consultant need. This annual review process has led to year on year increases in additional training places being created across multiple different specialties since 2014, including 47 new specialty training places that will be created in 2025.

I have asked Alison Byrne OBE, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland (NRS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

NRS operates an information security governance and assurance structure aligned to ISO 27001 and HM Government security framework.

Personnel are vetted and undertake mandatory security and data protection training. NRS routinely uses data protection impact assessments to identify and address privacy risks. Regular IT Health Checks are completed and vulnerabilities remediated. Security event monitoring and alerting is in place. Risk management, asset controls and reporting processes are used to manage technology risk.

NRS has achieved Cyber Essentials Plus certification and accreditation as a data processing environment under the Digital Economy Act.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

RoS formally surveys its customers (professionals and citizens) twice a year through the Customer Services Institute to benchmark customer satisfaction and customer effort. RoS uses the information provided to make improvements to RoS’s services. RoS consistently achieves customer satisfaction scores and customer effort scores that are significantly better than the public sector benchmark.

In addition, RoS adheres to the Scottish Approach to Service Design (https://www.gov.scot/publications/the-scottish-approach-to-service-design/) with activity including research sessions. Around 250 such sessions were held during the last year along with 20 live webinars for customers spanning 14 topics of customer/user interest.

RoS have a monthly accessibility clinic working alongside colleagues from the Scottish Government and regularly research with customers to ensure their services follow the web content accessibility guidelines, (wcag 2.2 www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/ ).

RoS also maintains an effective network meeting regularly with key stakeholders including lenders, UK Finance, and The Law Society of Scotland’s Property Law Committee ensuring visibility and opportunity for lenders, solicitors and conveyancing professional bodies and individuals to contact them with questions, improvement suggestions or service delivery concerns.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament and Digital transformation and modernisation of the Registers of Scotland systems are the responsibility of the Keeper.

RoS is delivering a significant programme of digital transformation and modernisation. This has moved RoS’s registers to the cloud; enabled applications to be submitted digitally; and enabled customers to self-serve digital information from the registers; as well as significantly modernising the internal digital tools used by RoS to process applications.

The Scottish Government sets out the Digital Scotland Service Standards which RoS adheres to and RoS staff have taken part in training and development from the Scottish Government’s Digital Academy.

Registers of Scotland is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament and is subject to regular scrutiny from the Economy and Fair Work Committee, including on the work it is delivering to improve operational efficiency.

The Scottish Government has visibility of the strategic objectives set out in the RoS Corporate Plan 2022-2027, including the work outlined therein to improve operational efficiency and reduce headcount. The Scottish Government receives regular reporting on the progress with these aspects through the various Public Service Reform commissions.

In Scotland, there is no funding out with the advertising spend that is allocated for community radio stations. The selection of the stations for campaigns is determined by the target audience and reach. Information on individual advertising spend per radio station is not available to us as this is deemed commercially sensitive.