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Registers of Scotland - Follow up from the evidence session

Letter from the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, 4 March 2022

Dear Ms Baker

REGISTERS OF SCOTLAND COMMITTEE APPEARANCE FOLLOW UP

Thank you for you for the opportunity to attend the Economy and Fair Work Committee on Wednesday 02 March 2022, I enjoyed meeting you and the committee members in person and I hope the committee found the session useful.

During my appearance I took a note to follow up on a number of areas and I propose to write to the committee separately on each of these issues. The areas identified and actions I intend to take are as follows:-

Digital Update

Provide a fuller update on our digital systems, their complexity, our upcoming digital projects, our use of contractors and further information on our Grow Our Own campaign.

Arrear Update

Provide a more detailed breakdown of our backlog of cases, including the latest arrear position, broken down into county, constituency area and types of cases.

Land Register Completion Update

Provide more detail on our approach to delivering the benefits of a completed land register, including the number of titles registered by local authority area and Voluntary Registration engagement. I highlighted that I would share a link to the land mass coverage map, that now includes unlocking sasines information. This can be found on our LRC progress update webpage here. The total land mass coverage as at January 2022, including unlocking sasines work, can be found here.

Corporate Plan Update

Share our Corporate Plan 2022 – 2027 with the committee following its publication on 1 April 2022, including the targets we are setting in relation to the clearing of our case backlog.

I should also note that I have followed up with Ms Hyslop separately regarding the constituency case she mentioned during the appearance, to ensure she has all the latest information.

I hope this summary is helpful. If there is any further information the committee would like me to provide, please do let me know. The committee clerk has been in touch to advise that the committee would now like monthly updates, rather than quarterly, and I am very happy to support this request. I also note that the committee plan to invite me to provide evidence again later in the year, and I look forward to seeing you all in person again in due course.

Finally, now that our offices are starting to reopen, I would be happy to arrange a visit to Meadowbank House for any committee members that would be interested in a more in depth look into the work we do at Registers of Scotland. I appreciate that co-ordinating diaries may be a challenge, so I would be very happy to accommodate a visit from individual committee members, smaller groups of the committee, or indeed the full committee if diaries align.

Yours sincerely

JENNIFER HENDERSON Keeper of the Registers of Scotland

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