Land Registry : Introduction

Equality impact assessment Introduction

2. Introduction and background

2.1 The Board first announced proposals to close Harrow and York offices in May 2006. The drivers for the proposals was the recommendations contained in a report produced by the Director of Facilities, Agency Estates in March 2006 entitled ‘Corporate Real Estate Outline Strategy’ (the Report). A copy of the Report is attached at Annex 1.

2.2 The Report pointed out that Land Registry already has a substantial existing over capacity of office accommodation. The expectations are that there will be a significant reduction to staffing levels in the future. The Report pointed to the current office portfolio comprising 145,000m² compared with an optimised need of approximately 90,000m² for the present 8,000 or so staff. This represents a current 30% over capacity. It also pointed out that the situation would be exacerbated when the predicted fall in staffing levels to around 6,000 staff in 2010/11 materialises. This would give an accommodation over capacity of 50%, or double the space needed.

2.3 In view of the Land Registry’s business targets and the planned transformation to its work and processes, both in relation to the comprehensive register and e-conveyancing, staff numbers are expected to fall by around 30% between 2005 and 2011. The Proposal does not include any plans to make compulsory redundancies. It is hoped that all staff will continue their employment with Land Registry by transferring elsewhere.

2.4 The Report was devised to deliver the most effective solution to the issues set out above and it identified potential office mergers, as well as the potential closure of three offices, including Harrow and York where the leases were due to expire within the next ten years.

2.5 The Board considered all of the options contained in the Report at meetings on 7 March and 12 April 2006. The options considered for avoiding closure of the Harrow office were:

renewing the existing lease and letting the surplus space, or
taking a new lease of smaller premises

These models are extremely unlikely to gain approval of HM Treasury because of the lack of a business case to support the continued requirement what is in effect surplus office space. Other Government policies contained in the Gershon and Lyons reports emphasise the need to move out of the south east and to reduce staff numbers.

The Board decided to take forward proposals that included the possibility of closure of the Harrow and York offices. No firm decision was then taken by the Board to close either office. Extracts from the Board minutes detailing the proposals concerning Harrow are attached at Annex 2. The proposals were then published in Land Registry’s blueprint which was sent to the DTUS in advance and shortly afterwards made available to all staff.

2.6 At the time of the proposals, Land Registry carried out an initial impact assessment. This initial assessment, seen by the DTUS, revealed that the closure of the Harrow office would potentially affect a high proportion of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) staff that could result in the reduction of BME staff employed by Land Registry as a whole from 4.6% to 3.7%, a reduction of approximately 25% of all such staff. The initial impact assessment was based on the data compiled from self-declarations of ethnicity by staff to Personnel. Having highlighted the issue, the initial impact assessment became the “screening” part of a thorough analysis, prompting as it did the need for a full and detailed impact assessment. The possibility of a variety of diversity issues were identified and highlighted in relation to ethnicity, gender, disability and age. The data was taken from the general statistical data and information held on the personnel database at the time contained in the Report.

2.7 At the same time Land Registry had already entered into dialogue with DTUS on the blueprint proposals and the question of the diversity issues was raised in that forum. Land Registry accordingly took legal advice upon the point. This advice also highlighted the need to carry out further work, in particular in relation to its obligations under the Race Relations Act and to ensure that Land Registry’s actions were consistent with its own published Race Equality scheme. The advice also pointed out that Land Registry had just become bound to assess its proposals both under the Disability Discrimination Act and in future the Sex Discrimination Act.