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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 26 April 2025
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Displaying 1499 contributions

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Finance and Public Administration Committee

Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)

Meeting date: 20 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

Arguably, then, you are suggesting that there should be more transparency and that there needs to be linkage to various outcomes.

I do not know whether the Auditor General wants to come in on that point. It strikes me as an interesting area.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

So it is not actually your customers who have said this. You used the term “customers”, but it is a committee of the Law Society that has suggested that approach rather than the customers at the end of the chain.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

But surely some customers will not know that there is a problem with cases going back to 2017 until it is uncovered, by which time it will be too late.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

I think the convener is going to come in here—

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

I am sorry—it is not a supplementary question. It is on something entirely different, and it is a quick question for the end.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

My question is a supplementary one to that question. Land register completion by local authorities is quite variable. There are some very high completion rates for some local authorities; incredibly, others have a rate below 50 per cent, and some have zero per cent. I want to understand what influence, if any, you have over that completion by local authorities and why there is such disparity in those figures, regardless of whether you separate that from the land register or unlocking sasines.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

Do you have an active plan for the next wave of how to engage with local authorities, given the disparity in the figures? I appreciate that the local authorities have been affected by Covid and are restarting a lot of their operations.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

You have said that you spoke to your customers, but what specific feedback did you get from those who still had outstanding cases from 2017? Did they say that they wanted the cases that had been lodged more recently to be dealt with first? Did you break it down in that way?

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

Yes, we are quite pushed for time.

If the convener agrees, I just want to ask on behalf of the committee whether you can come back to us with an outline of your specific strategy for dealing with cases from 2017 and reflect on what threads of that will influence your strategy for dealing with backlog cases from subsequent years. I do not accept the sort of revisionist approach that suggests that by getting rid of the term “backlog”, you can get rid of the backlog itself. If some of these historic cases are not dealt with, it could be “catastrophic”—I agree with Mr Robertson’s assessment here—if a rejection were to occur, hence my asking about your strategy.

Economy and Fair Work Committee

Registers of Scotland

Meeting date: 7 September 2022

Michelle Thomson

Am I correct in understanding that the time period for expedite cases does not include the period of time since they were lodged? Has your process changed?