- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 September 2018
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on there being a UK-wide referendum on the final terms of the Brexit deal.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2018
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 17 September 2018
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 20 September 2018
Question to be taken in Chamber.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 20 September 2018
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government how many people awaiting the processing of a land registry application in each of the last three years have informed Land Registry Scotland that they have had to take out a standard variable rate loan as a result of the delay, and whether it has conducted an assessment of the financial impact of this on applicants.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that historically lenders would not usually require registration applications to be completed before offering customers new deals or rates. Recently some lenders have changed their position. In such cases, where the Keeper is made aware, by a customer or their solicitors, that registration delays are having this sort of impact then the registration application will be expedited. The total number of cases in which this has been done, across the last three years, is 12.
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government how many complaints Land Registry Scotland has received in each of the last three years regarding the length of time taken to process an application.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that Registers of Scotland is acutely aware of customer and stakeholder concern around how long some applications are taking, and that they are in continual dialogue with the Law Society of Scotland and individual customers as they work through their plan to resolve the current backlog. The number of formal complaints is in the following table.
Year | Total applications | Complaints related to registration delays |
2015-16 | 475,965 | 2 |
2016-17 | 514,048 | 9 |
2017-18 | 541,622 | 23 |
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government how many staff have been employed at Registers of Scotland in each year since 2007-08.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She has provided me with the information requested in the following table, as taken from the Annual Reports from 2007-08 until 2017-18.
Year | Contractors | Civil Servants | Total Average headcount |
2007-2008 | 50 | 1297 | 1347 |
2008-2009 | 35 | 1313 | 1348 |
2009-2010 | 31 | 1296 | 1327 |
2010-2011 | 26 | 1247 | 1273 |
2011-2012 | 8 | 1108 | 1116 |
2012-2013 | 27 | 972 | 999 |
2013-2014 | 46 | 882 | 928 |
2014-2015 | 65 | 838 | 903 |
2015-2016 | 89 | 967 | 1056 |
2016-2017 | 157 | 1016 | 1173 |
2017-2018 | 317 | 1101 | 1418 |
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there is a reported backlog of land registry applications.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that in excess of 70% of land register applications are completed within 5 days and in the last financial year the average waiting time was 26.5 days. However, a number of applications have taken longer than anticipated. This is largely attributable to the Keeper and stakeholders working through the practical challenges presented by the introduction of the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012 in December of 2014, including the Keeper undertaking to clear all cases submitted under the previous legislation within one year. Additionally, as land register coverage matures the nature of titles undergoing first registration has changed and Registers of Scotland have required to adapt to that.
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government what the longest waiting time has been for a land registry application in each of the last three years, and what the longest waiting time is currently.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that she has instigated a plan to clear the current backlog, which has already resolved over 1000 of the oldest applications, with an initial target of ensuring by the end of this year that no applicants have been waiting longer than 2 years. The oldest application currently with Registers of Scotland is 2 years and
4 months old (against a service standard of 9 months). The position for each of the last three years is shown in the following table:-
Year | Longest waiting time by number of working days |
2015-16 | 3790 days |
2016-17 | 3869 days |
2017-18 | 2069 days |
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018
To ask the Scottish Government when the last Registers of Scotland staff survey took place, and when the next one will take place.
Answer
This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that that Registers of Scotland invite colleagues to participate in the annual civil service people survey (CSPS), which last took place in October 2017. 727 colleagues and external staff (51.4%) chose to take part in the survey.
The next CSPS will open on 1 October 2018 and run for one month, with high level results available from the end of November and detailed comparative data available in December 2018.
Registers of Scotland also undertook a Colleague Wellbeing survey in 2017 which provided insight into colleagues’ physical and psychological wellbeing. This will be repeated in late 2018 with comparative data available in early 2019.
Registers of Scotland further supplements this insight by participating in Investors in People (IiP) assessments which include annual surveys and interviews with samples of colleagues over a three year period. Registers of Scotland was awarded in a Silver status in July 2018 following independent analysis of colleague feedback.
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 September 2018
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 13 September 2018
Question to be taken in Chamber.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 13 September 2018
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Friday, 29 June 2018
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Current Status:
Answered by Derek Mackay on 20 July 2018
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-02378 by Keith Brown on 28 September 2016 and the answer to question S5W-11126 by Derek Mackay on 19 September 2017, whether it will provide an update on the required change to parliamentary procedures associated with approving Scottish Government guarantees.
Answer
Since the previous PQs (S5W-02378 on 28 September 2016 and S5W-11126 on 19 September 2017 - all answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx ) were answered, Parliamentary procedures associated with the approval of the Scottish Government entering into a contingent liability or guarantee have changed.
In an amendment to the written agreement between the Scottish Government and the Finance and Constitution Committee it was agreed that the approval of the Committee will be sought for guarantees where the potential exposure exceeds £2.5 million and that the Committee would be notified of all guarantees with a potential exposure falling between £300k and £2.5 million. The previous agreement required that Committee approval be sought for arrangements where the potential exposure was over £1 million. The arrangements outlined above do not apply where the guarantee or contingent liability is granted under a statutory requirement to do so or is of a standard type and arises as an unavoidable feature of an activity authorised by statute.
