HM Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 HM Land Registry Report and Accounts Annual 2013/14 HM Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 101 of the Land Registration Act 2002. Accounts presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 4(6)(a) of the Government Trading Funds Act 1973 as amended by the Government Trading Act 1990. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 17 July 2014. HC 196 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 © Crown copyright 2014 You may re-use this information (excluding logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence v.2. To view this licence visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/ or email PSI@ nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk Where third party material has been identified, permission from the respective copyright holder must be sought. 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ID 27051402 07/14 Printed on paper containing 75 per cent recycled fibre content minimum. 2 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 Contents Statement by the Chair 5 Foreword by the Chief Land Registrar 7 and Chief Executive Who we are and what we do 9 Our year in figures 10 Our year in focus 13 Finance Director’s report 19 Strategic report 25 Directors’ report 35 Information round-up 39 Accounts 49 Governance statement 49 Statement of Accounting Officer’s responsibilities 59 Remuneration report 61 Certificate of the Comptroller and Auditor General 69 Financial statements 71 Appendix A Volumes and workloads 95 Appendix B Response to the economic climate 96 Appendix C Treasury Minute 99 3 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 4 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 Statement by the Chair Land Registry’s future has been the subject of much public debate over the past few months. Following a consultation the Government has announced its intention to facilitate wider powers allowing us to become sole registering authority for Local Land Charges. The Government has also been considering the results of a consultation on measures to enable the business of land registration to be more delivery focused and for Land Registry to have greater flexibility to operate. The Government has announced that further consideration of the themes raised by the consultation would be valuable. Therefore at this time, no decision has been taken to change Land Registry’s model. However this period of deliberation has been far from a hiatus for us. We have carried on working towards our objectives in the key areas of efficiency, data, assurance to help job seekers and house buyers identify affordable and capability with greater vigour and success than areas to work and live. ever, making excellent progress towards the challenging targets in our Business Strategy. Our role in providing assurance to the property market demands that we continually improve our customer Our commitment to greater efficiency has been service and our counter-fraud systems. High quality demonstrated by our success in exceeding our targets registrations and detailed attention to changing customer in areas as diverse as the speed in which we complete needs helped us exceed our already high customer registrations, the running of our operational budget and satisfaction and Net Promoter Score targets. We know the carbon we emit into the atmosphere. however that the plaudits will soon cease if we don’t fulfil our duty to prevent property fraud. Our new free Property We achieved a 21 per cent rise in productivity as a Alert service is one of many ways in which we are helping stable workforce processed a fast increasing number of home owners to reduce the risk of fraud. applications generated by the recovery in the property market. This was thanks both to their hard work and to The uncertainty over our future status made it perhaps the efficiency measures and technological enhancements unsurprising that we missed our staff engagement we are introducing. Almost 56 per cent of applications target. But our people have continued to demonstrate affecting a registered title are now being lodged their commitment to their work, their colleagues and their electronically. The next challenge will be to develop more communities in many other ways. efficient processes for these applications. We know that a skilled and motivated workforce is as We have also been proactive in widening our role in crucial to helping us achieve our future ambitions as it the property market for the benefit of the economy. has been to the successes of the past 12 months. During By developing a prototype Local Land Charges register a year of uncertainty it is to the credit of both the we demonstrated how we could use our experience and management team led by Ed Lester and our staff that we expertise to improve the conveyancing process. We have met so many of our targets and so been able to play believe there could be areas outside our traditional remit our full part in assisting the economic future of the in which we could play a similarly positive role. country. With further support and development we intend to build on this success to provide new and improved We have also broken new ground in the use and reuse of services for the benefit of our customers and the broader our data. Over the year we’ve released new datasets on economy. a regular basis and to demanding standards of quality and accessibility. Businesses are finding exciting ways of exploiting the data to create new services that benefit markets and consumers. Our price paid data is used by virtually all of the housing and property market’s analysts and is integral to the Mark Boyle majority of property applications available. Indeed, one Chair of the prizes in our open data challenge was awarded to Land Registry Board Adzuna, who based their idea on a novel use of our data 5 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 6 Land Registry Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 Foreword by the Chief Land Registrar and Chief Executive My first year at Land Registry has been a year of both significant change and growth in business-as-usual activity. It is a testament to the commitment and professionalism of colleagues that Land Registry has been able to progress aspects of the new Business Strategy while servicing transaction volumes which have increased by 16 per cent compared with the previous year. The Business Strategy approved by the Minister in 2012 has begun to take shape. A significant and demanding piece of work has been undertaken by Land Registry colleagues to develop the planning and modelling required to achieve the benefits it set out. These benefits include increases in productivity, which will be driven by digital by default, better online services to the customer and maximising the use of our data. To fulfil the strategy, the government shareholder – the Shareholder Executive – has completed an eight-week public consultation to enable the business of land We were also able to meet our efficiency objective, a registration to be more delivery focused and to have financial budget constraint which required a 3.2 per greater flexibility to operate. It included proposals to cent saving in real terms, while coping with the increase create a new company to which responsibility for the in work, reflecting the drive to give better value to the performance of service delivery would be transferred customer. and to have a separate Office of the Chief Land Registrar, which would primarily perform regulatory functions. The targets for 2013/14 also included the first steps along the Business Strategy path. These included release Land Registry also consulted on wider powers to become of a free Property Alert service. This service was recently sole registering authority for Local Land Charges, recognised with an award of first place in the Real IT enabling us to provide a streamlined standardised digital Awards under the category Innovation in Business. It service. The Government has announced its intention to offers a free property monitoring service aimed at anyone facilitate wider powers allowing Land Registry to become who feels their registered property could be at risk from sole registering authority for Local Land Charges. fraud. It is the latest counter-fraud measure that we have introduced to help protect people’s most valuable asset – The Government has announced at this time, that no their home. decision has been taken to change Land Registry’s model. There are however some steps we can take to We also achieved the objective to develop a prototype improve the way Land Registry operates. For example, Local Land Charges system in conjunction with a small the development of the Virtual Post Room service will group of local authorities supporting the pilot, to test the streamline the intake of casework, allowing digital flow feasibility of the service, and we presented an evaluation to our caseworkers, thereby making the best use of their of the prototype with recommendations to the Minister on skills and improving our efficiency and effectiveness. next steps. This approach allows us to test future options in a low risk way, with limited financial exposure. While recognising the challenge that change brings to any business, we must continue to maintain our focus on Our income of £381.3m was based on the fee structure the effective delivery of day-to-day activities.