Property: The RoS arrear: any light in the tunnel?

[Editor’s note: In recent weeks the Journal has received correspondence from solicitors pointing out that the arrear at Registers of Scotland – the backlog of registration applications – had climbed to well over 100,000 cases. This was despite previous efforts to ringfence the arrear in order to reduce and in due course eliminate it. Of these, more than 3,000 had been in hand since 2017, and there were between 11,000 and 16,000 from each of the years 2018 to 2020.

Understandably, concerns were expressed as to the possible consequences were an application to be ultimately rejected, and on the effect on any subsequent transactions intended for the property before the application was dealt with. The question was also asked, what was the Law Society of Scotland doing on its members’ behalf about what one solicitor described as “this risk management nightmare”?

The Journal took up the issue, and the outcome was the following Q&A session between the Society and Registers of Scotland, which includes information from Registers on the latest state of play and outlook, as well as where solicitors can monitor performance on an ongoing basis. The Journal’s correspondence column remains open.]

John Sinclair, consultant at Burness Paull and convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s Property Law Committee, discusses the backlog of open casework (the arrear) with Chris Kerr, Registration and Policy Director, Registers of Scotland. 

Tracking performance

JS: Last June you announced your plans to “tackle the arrear” by ringfencing the outstanding casework and applying dedicated staff and resources who would focus on clearing the older outstanding cases.  Are you on target?

CK: The short answer is yes, we are on track, and that progress is shown in the Key Performance Indicators section of our new performance pages, where you will see we are meeting the KPIs for tackling new applications as well as the range of numbers for clearing longstanding open cases on a quarterly basis. 

This information is available at www.ros.gov.uk/performance. 

We had predicted that our overall stock (the total number of applications in work) would rise slightly in Q4 of last year and in the early part of the current financial year as our outputs slowed due to the recruitment and training of new staff. We are happy to say that the overall stock position has actually been stable since January of this year and that is despite our intake levels being at the high end of our forecasts due to the ongoing buoyancy of the property market.  

However, there is lots more for us to do. We need to continue to streamline and improve our ability to deal with new applications more quickly and with fewer people, so that we can release more people to manage the open casework and reduce the total volume.  

We are confident that this approach is the best way of clearing the old casework and, crucially, ensuring we do so in a sustainable way, meaning the problem cannot return. 

Having customers adopt innovative RoS services such as Register Land and Property – which simplifies the process of registering deeds – reduces the likelihood of errors, will help us to go faster and ultimately deliver that sustainable solution more quickly.

The increasing arrear

JS: The service standard reports you have published this year show that the number of outstanding cases has increased. In June 2022, the number of outstanding cases was 108,497, which is an increase of over 10,000 on the same time last year. If the aim is to clear the arrear by 2024, why have you allowed it to rise?

CK: Prior to the pandemic we were on track to have substantially cleared the arrear by the end of 2024. Unfortunately, the pandemic had a major impact on those plans as we had to shift our focus and resources into building methods of digital submission and enabling our colleagues to work effectively remotely. Other planned improvements, such as recruitment and training were also impacted.

The growth in open casework from 2020 to 2022 is therefore attributable to the impact of the pandemic and the fact that the property market in Scotland has been extremely buoyant. However, as we explained above, the overall stock has been stable since January 2022, despite high volumes of intakes (new applications). We have stabilised the stock position earlier than we expected to, and this provides a platform for us over the second half of this year, through continued execution of our strategies to increase our capacity, improve turnaround times of open cases and continue to reduce the age of that casework.

The strategy for managing casework has been developed following regular consultation with the Property Law Committee and other professional stakeholders to ensure that so far as possible it aligns with their priorities and aspirations. We are confident that our approach will work, but we are continually looking at ways in which we can deliver more quickly for our customers. In the meantime, we have mitigations to support those with open cases: 

• We will not reject a case after three months unless it is legally unavoidable. In the rare circumstance where a case does have to be rejected, we have an effective process to ensure it can be fast-tracked through the system when it is resubmitted.    
• We have a process to expedite applications for those rare cases when an application being in the backlog may cause a person a specific problem, such as:     
  – financial loss or hardship; 
  – the loss of future transactions; 
  – personal loss or hardship.  

While we recognise that these mitigations are not a solution in themselves to clearing the backlog, they offer practical and meaningful support to customers while we manage our levels of open casework.   

We also are working directly with lenders to ensure they are comfortable with the processes we have in place regarding open casework and that their lending commitments are at no risk. We also provide them with free data reports to allow them to see that applications are with us and progressing through the system, and that the requirement to seek confirmation from panel solicitors is not needed. We are keen to extend the uptake of this service and reduce the burden on those firms. 

The oldest cases

JS: The oldest case is dated 5 January 2017. When is this expected to be completed, and how many cases are still outstanding at over five years old? 

CK: That case is now completed. At the time of writing, less than 1% of cases from 2017 remain open. A number of cases from that year are awaiting input or further information from the applicant to allow them to be completed. As these figures are changing frequently, the best place for information is the RoS performance page on the website.

We are focusing, through further recruitment and development of colleagues, on having more people with the skills and experience to work on these and similar cases so we can clear both new cases and longstanding open cases of this nature much more quickly.

In the meantime, if people have 2017 cases (or any cases for that matter) with us which they have concerns about, but which perhaps don’t meet the expedite criteria, I encourage them to have a discussion with their RoS customer relationship manager at CRteam@ros.gov.uk.

Further updates

JS: Will you update solicitors on your progress, and where can they look for further information?

CK: We are committed to being transparent and customer focused. One example of this is that we recently launched a new section on the RoS website which makes it even easier for people to track our performance across a wide range of metrics. This includes the latest figures on total casework volumes and turnaround times.  

We also continue to engage with customers via our communication channels, including regular scheduled meetings with the Law Society of Scotland and the Property Law Committee, webinars, factsheets, RoS social media channels, and via bespoke targeted updates and blogs. I recently recorded a podcast called “Managing Casework: A Discussion with Chris Kerr”, which you can listen to via the usual podcast platforms. 

I would encourage any customer who requires support with any of their casework to please get in touch with your customer relationship manager, or contact our customer relationship team CRTeam@ros.gov.uk. We have a range of information and advice we can provide you with.  

In addition, if you have found this Q&A useful, then I’d be delighted to do another one later in the year to update you on our progress.  

In the meantime, I’d encourage customers who want the latest, accurate information on casework to use RoS’s own dedicated channels.

The latest information and figures showing the reduction in open cases year-on-year is available on the new performance pages on the RoS website. 

All figures included in this article, unless otherwise stated, are correct as of the end of June 2022.