Performance, progress towards strategic objectives and future strategy

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 7: To identify the scope for providing further public services relating to our own sphere of activity, utilising our own skills, data and resources

Land Registry’s International Unit was established in 2003. Since then, it has taken on responsibility for co-ordinating all of our international activity.

The International Unit has:

• produced publicity material describing the range of services we can offer to overseas clients
• established the sources from which international work is put out to tender
• provided support to the UNECE Working Party on Land Administration
• organised study visits for government and land administration officials from Iceland, Lithuania, Bahrain, Armenia, Slovakia, France, Nigeria, Korea, Australia, Japan, Serbia, Barbados, Spain, China, Latvia, Ghana, Russia and Egypt
• sought further opportunities for Land Registry to utilise its knowledge and experience overseas
• begun to develop our capacity to bid for work that is put out to tender by bilateral and multi-lateral donor organisations such as the World Bank and EU (working with our colleagues in Registers of Scotland)
• lodged expressions of interest in respect of eight land administration projects across the globe
• been involved in the establishment of a joint Land Registry/Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors qualification scheme, drawing on its experience of overseas land administration systems to provide students with input on land management and cadastre.
• hosted a visit by 26 students from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
• arranged a short-term secondment to Land Registry by an official from St Helena’s Department of Lands.

Nigeria

We provided consultancy advice to the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development regarding the modernisation of Nigeria’s Federal Land Registry. The work, sponsored by the Nigerian Government, involved practical input at a two-day workshop entitled ‘Reforming Land Registration Practices in Nigeria’. In addition, we have also been subcontracted by the British Council to provide input into their Security, Justice and Growth Programme. The programme, sponsored by the UK Department for International Development, provides support to improve the organisational capacity and sustainability of land registries in four Nigerian states. We anticipate that the programme will continue throughout 2005.

Hungary

We continue to offer practical advice and support to the World Bank-sponsored Centre for European Land Knowledge (CELK) in Budapest. This has included assistance with the production of business plans and advice on developing project proposals. We were contracted by the World Bank to undertake the end of grant review of CELK.

Iraq

We have provided practical support to the Iraqi Property Claims Commission (IPCC). A member of Land Registry staff was seconded to the Coalition Provisional Authority Headquarters in Baghdad where he was involved in the drafting and revision of statutory instruments; visiting government departments to establish the land-related information they held (and how the IPCC could access it); assisting with the creation of an administrative structure for the IPCC; and establishing workflow patterns and process stages. He also helped with the production of a series of public information leaflets to explain the IPCC processes.

UNCEC Working Party on Land Administration

Land Registry continues to be represented on the Bureau of the Working Party on Land Administration (WPLA) by Ted Beardsall, our Deputy Chief Executive. As a result of this association, the International Unit was represented at a WPLA workshop on the theme of the ‘Development of Real Property Markets and Access to Mortgage’ held in Armenia in May. In addition to this, the Unit has completed its assigned work on producing guidelines for public–private partnerships within the land administration arena and is undertaking work to produce the fourth edition of the Inventory of Land Administration Systems in Europe and North America.