HM Land Registry update
HM Land Registry update: registering land in the digital age
John Abbott discusses how HM Land Registry can better use IT to serve customers and manage data.
About the author
John Abbott is director of digital, data and technology at HM Land Registry.
In the 2016 Autumn Statement, HM Land Registry was tasked to focus on becoming a data-driven registration business in the public sector.¹ In February 2017, the housing white paper, Fixing our broken housing market, went further, committing us to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data and aim to achieve comprehensive registration by 2030.²
Our vision for achieving this ambition is laid out in our 2016/17 annual reports and accounts, a reflection of last year’s foundation work and our strategy to transform into a truly digital service provider, exploring how, beyond digitising existing services, we can help to release more value from the register.³
This vision cannot be achieved overnight, and we will need to work with many partners along the way to test and define ways of working. This will go some way to transforming all of England and Wales, not just the corridors of Whitehall and the open-plan offices of hi-tech hubs in London.
Speaking of the significance our transformation agenda holds for HM Land Registry, our Chief Executive and Chief Land Registrar Graham Farrant said: 'Alongside the key role we already play in the property market, our transformation will help support the UK in developing a vibrant and innovative digital economy. Our plans not only involve the digitisation of our existing services but we will explore how, through new digital technology, we can help to potentially release even more value from the Land Register
To our many customers and stakeholders, I would ask you to join, support and partner with us as we explore how we can work together digitally to continue to make conveyancing simpler, faster and cheaper for everyone.'
Our transformation is being shaped by user needs and developed in an agile way. We are delivering simple services which address the most significant user needs first, and then are made better and better through continuous improvement. Our transformation focuses on three core goals:
- aiming to achieve comprehensive registration of unregistered land mass in England and Wales;
- digital transformation of our services, IT platforms and the register itself; and
- release of our data in an open and transparent manner.
We have begun to work towards achieving the comprehensive registration of land mass in England and Wales by 2030. This could improve the conveyancing process, making it simpler, faster and cheaper, and benefit the individual buyer and the wider economy. It will also support the development of new homes, financial stability, tax collection, law enforcement and the protection of national security.
Currently, around 16% of land in England and Wales is unregistered. Closing this gap has become an operational priority, with unregistered public sector land in focus initially, which could potentially be used for new homes. Part of this involves working creatively with key partners across both public and private sectors, ensuring that our digital register will be up to the task. This is something we will pilot through ‘Digital Street’, launching this summer, which will allow us safely to explore the use of new technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. It will tell us what information will be of use and how we might go about digitising the register to support online conveyancing. Based on the success of this, we will know how to roll-out further and in the most effective way possible.
For similar reasons, and in response to customer demands for more property information as well as a government commitment to innovate the digital economy, we will open our data sets wherever possible. We have become strategic partners with Ordnance Survey at their Geovation Hub, supporting growth and innovation in the PropTech and other start-up sectors. These are some of the most dynamic and exciting areas for us to move into.
Through transforming how we work internally, moving to more digital systems and services, we aim to meet the changing needs of our customers and we will be testing ideas and delivering those that make conveyancing simpler, faster and cheaper. Digitisation will allow HM Land Registry to provide information and data which is renowned for its accuracy and usefulness to its customers, citizens, firms, government, lawyers and conveyancers and financial institutions, while supporting the UK’s development of a vibrant and innovative digital economy.
Our common technology platform was shortlisted for a UK IT Industry award in 2016. The platform enables our technology teams to improve our IT infrastructure quickly, easily and reliably as part of a future strategy to replace our current IT systems over the next five years. It will underpin all our new digital services, and makes best use of cloud and open source technologies.
For our customers, government partners and the wider public, it will mean easier access to our services and data, including the 24.8m property titles in the Land Register. For anyone involved in buying and selling property, it will mean a faster, smoother conveyancing system, thanks to the new digital land registration services the platform will provide.
In June 2016, we began operating a pilot version of our digital mortgage service. The first phase is aimed at homeowners who are going through the process of remortgaging. The feedback from borrowers who have tested the service has been positive, and we have made improvements based on this feedback.
We are now using the GOV.UK Verify service to provide us with an appropriate level of ID assurance before the borrower signs their mortgage deed digitally. The service is still in private beta but we intend to open it up to more users in 2017.
This will be one of the first of a new breed of digital services which enable customers and citizens to update the register digitally. The first truly digital mortgage can be created, signed and registered, without the need for any paperwork or e-mails and without the need for our people to be involved in the process.
Our work, so far, has already transformed the way our data is used, and what this could mean with greater digital capacity. A significant achievement of the past year was the launch of the first UK House Price Index in June 2016. Working together with the Office for National Statistics, Registers of Scotland, and Land & Property Services Northern Ireland, the index replaced the previous indices published separately by those organisations.
Having a single price index for the entire UK ends the confusion previously caused by multiple government indices. The inclusion of more information, such as cash sales and new dwellings, and the type of buyer, such as an existing owner, provides a clearer picture of the housing market.
We have already seen proven success with our digital services: award-winning MapSearch passed the 10 million search milestone in October 2016. Launched in 2014, its success will serve as a blueprint for how we develop and deploy new services in the future.
Our free Application Enquiry service allows customers to check the progress of any application, and to find a wealth of information via the Business e-services portal – our online transactional channel for our professional customers. This new service has now been live for a year, and the number of calls and e-mails we receive has fallen as a result, which means that our caseworkers can focus on offering a faster service overall.
This year we added a number of new features that customers asked for, such as sending e-mail notifications when a customer’s application results are ready for download. We have also added information about mortgages that have been repaid, and the ability to contact us directly from the service. Customer feedback is that the service is simple and easy to use. Ensuring that our services are meeting our customers’ needs and getting their feedback will be central to the new digital services we will deliver in the future.
In previous years, we have seen an increase in service requests across most application types, and anticipate that this will continue throughout our transformation. We will continue working to process applications as quickly as possible, prioritising time-critical cases as they arise.
Refusing to compromise on quality and giving the assurance and confidence to the property market that it needs, we will continue to invest in counter-fraud and cyber-security measures to ensure the integrity of the register at all times.
1 Available at: http://tinyurl.com/y7oekp5x
2 Available at: http://tinyurl.com/hcgqd8r
3 Available at: http://tinyurl.com/ycopm4ua
4 Available at: http://tinyurl.com/ycbxcvch