Her Majesty’s Land Registry (Land Registry) was established in
1862. It is a non-ministerial government department, an executive
agency and a trading fund that makes no call on monies voted by
Parliament.
Land Registry’s functions are entirely statutory. It has no
prerogative powers. The Land Registration Act 2002 empowers Land
Registry to deal with “the business of registration under this Act”
and is Land Registry’s primary governing statute.
The Lord Chancellor has ministerial responsibility for Land Registry. Land Registry closely and regularly liaises with the Ministry of Justice. It provides advice and support to Land Registry in taking forward the development of new services within the wider government context.
The head of Land Registry is the Chief Land Registrar, appointed
under statute by the Lord Chancellor. The Chief Land Registrar is
also Land Registry’s Chief Executive and Accounting Officer. The
Chief Executive is solely responsible for the effective and efficient day-to-day management of Land Registry, subject to financial and legislative parameters.
As a public body, Land Registry is subject to a number of external influences and needs to address the issues raised in central government reports and initiatives such as Professional Skills for Government, Service Transformation by Sir David Varney, INSPIRE (the European directive Infrastructure for spatial information in Europe), the Office of Fair Trading’s report Commercial Use of Public Information and the independent review The Power of Information, by Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, commissioned by the Cabinet Office. These initiatives, and others, may influence further development. |
