Performance, progress towards strategic objectives and future strategy

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 5: To make all key Land Registry services available online by 2005 (e-business)

This year we have noticed a definite change in the way our customers do business with us.

• Since July 2004, the total fee income from our e-services (Land Registry Direct, Land Register Online and the National Land Information Service) has exceeded the income from Telephone Services.
• In March 2005, the average daily fee income from Telephone Services was £58,476, compared with the average daily fee income from all e-services of £117,969.
• September 2004, saw the highest ever percentage (43.8 per cent) of searches delivered through e-services.
• A steady growth in the popularity of e-services for official copies has also emerged, and to a lesser extent for searches of the index map (SIMs).

The Land Register

With the last uncomputerised register being converted in 2003–04, the Land Register is now fully electronic. This enables our customers to access our records electronically through two main e-services: Land Registry Direct for our account-holding business customers; and Land Register Online for the public. The Land Register holds almost 20 million registered titles.

Land Register Online

Land Register Online was officially launched on 31 January 2005. The service is part of our policy to provide choice to our customers in obtaining land registration information. It is in keeping with Government policy to place public services on the internet and is a further step towards the Prime Minister’s 2005 target for the electronic delivery of key public services.

Land Register Online enables customers to view and print out registers and title plans at a fee of £2 per transaction, payable by credit card. It supports W3C-compliant browsers and Apple Mac technology, making it fully accessible. We also offer our customers the choice of accessing the website in English or Welsh.

During the pilot period, the service delivered more than 560,000 downloads, an average of 1,500 a day. Following the launch in January, the level of demand for Land Register Online rose dramatically and at the end of March 2005, daily business was running at an average of 2,637 transactions. Demand for Land Register Online reached a peak at the end of January 2005 when the full service was launched, with an average of 5,779 daily transactions.

Land Registry Direct

Land Registry Direct is a credit account service for our business customers. It requires customers to hold a credit account with Land Registry and to register as users.

An improved and more reliable internet version of Land Registry Direct was successfully introduced this year. Account holders have risen significantly to 8,677 (up from 4,962) with individual users rising from 20,000 to 70,000.

Since September 2004, customers have been able to request that Land Charges certificates of result of search be electronically delivered as PDF files instead of as paper certificates. These are limited to searches made against private individuals and/or limited companies.

Land Registry Direct attracted a monthly fee income of over £2 million in March 2005. It processed a daily average of 50,788 transactions (up 46 per cent from 34,647).

We have continued to add new facilities, such as searches of the index of franchises and manors (brought in under the 2003 legislation). Land Registry Direct will be our main platform for launching e-conveyancing services over the next year, including e-lodgement enhancements, Public Key Infrastructure document authentication and map-based enquiries.

The National Land Information Service (NLIS)

NLIS is a commercial service with three channels offering online conveyancing and other searches via the internet to solicitors and licensed conveyancers throughout England and Wales. The channels are competing in the marketplace and differentiate their services by packaging and presenting the information to suit their target audience. Searches are electronically sent, and results received, via the NLIS hub, which acts as the gateway for information and services from a number of data providers and also provides search tracking, billing and payment mechanisms. Land Registry continues to be a major data provider to NLIS. In September 2004, Land Charges searches and e-delivery of documents were added to the existing NLIS services.

The number of searches made through NLIS has now passed the three million milestone. In just one year, NLIS has processed over two million searches (up from one million processed during its first two years) due to increased take-up by the legal profession.

In March 2005, NLIS:

• average daily transactions reached £13,785
• had the highest ever monthly fee income - £289,491
• processed the highest ever number of transactions per month - 109,058

Official copies of the register account for 50 per cent of business and Official Searches account for a further 19 per cent, reflecting the largely practitioner customer base.

The European Land Information Service (EULIS)

The EULIS vision is to provide access to information across European borders via the internet, creating a better environment for property and finance professionals, as well as for the public.

The initial EULIS project started in January 2002 and concluded in June 2004 with a series of seminars launching the next stage of the EULIS programme. Our Minister at the time, David Lammy MP, gave the opening address at the final seminar in London, which was seen as the launch point of EULIS across Europe.

The participants are mainly representatives from the Land Registries of eight European countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, Austria, The Netherlands, Scotland, and England/Wales) and Lund University.

In December 2004 we successfully achieved one of our key performance targets by making Land Registry data available to the EULIS demonstrator- this formed Phase 1 of the EULIS Direct Project.

Under Phase 2 of the Project we will seek to provide secure online access for all EULIS member states to data held by all other participating countries. Special attention will be given to security issues and currency conversion. This phase will be implemented in late 2005 and early 2006, subject to satisfactory progress being made by all participating countries on the necessary, shared, development activities. Norway will host the EULIS portal through which all transactions will be channelled.

Scanning of deeds

In October 2004 we completed a long-term project to scan all of our Register Referred (RR) files. This was one of the largest scanning operations of its kind and involved scanning over 12 million documents (approximately 100.4 million pages). Since the project began in 1998, some 120 Land Registry staff have worked with the contractors, Cendris, in a successful public–private partnership.

The ongoing scanning of new material continues but the completion of this initial project marks a significant achievement by all involved and means that staff and customers are able to access all RR files electronically.