London: 22 October 2009

HM Land Registry has opened a consultation on the Accelerated Transformation Programme. The consultation opened on the 22 October 2009 and will close on the 29 January 2010.

Three documents have been published to support the consultation one of which is titled: The LAND REGISTRY ACCELERATED TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME - Business Case. v2-0 20/10/2009. Consultation Issue. (68 pages)

The Business case consultation document states on page 3:

“Key messages

Land Registry, the self-funding, public, independent service guaranteeing title to land in England and Wales, delivers high levels of customer service and has a track record of major efficiency improvement.

The sharp decline in the property market, unprecedented in recent history, has challenged the organisation. Land Registry has already responded by reducing staff in post by 1748 (21%) and costs by £77.4m (19%) over the last two years. But we recognise that there is still more to be done and have launched the Accelerated Transformation Programme.

The Accelerated Transformation Programme (ATP) will, subject to the outcomes of the consultation process (see Section 9):

• develop Land Registry into an “e” business with high customer engagement;
• enable growth in Add Value gross revenue to £29m by 2014;
• reduce operating costs by a further £92m per year;
• close five local offices in the first phase of the programme and, based on current assumptions, a further two in the second;
• move out of Lincoln’s Inn Fields and vacate one of our Plymouth offices;
• generate over £70m from the sale of property; and
• reduce staff in post by a further 2250.

This will cost £182m which will be funded from cash reserves.

The positive net present value of the proposed changes over ten years is benefit of £493m.

Fees, under the programme central forecasts, could potentially be reduced by 5% per year from 2011/12.”

The Business case consultation document states on page 14:

“8. We need to develop and market add value products and services

• We need to maximise the availability of Land Registry’s public data in line with Government objectives (OPSI)
• We need to generate £29m incremental gross revenue by 2014 through the development and sale of add value products and services to support the development of statutory services and provide the opportunity to review fees
• We need more active collaboration with other government departments and agencies to jointly develop and market appropriate products and services
• We need to work with value added resellers (VARs) to enable them to develop products and services utilising our data where we don’t have the core competence or knowledge of the market “

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