Count of 10

Following Scottish ministers’ invitation to the Keeper to complete the Land Register within 10 years, with all public sector land to be registered within five years, the Registers of Scotland (RoS) public consultation is now live.

The consultation paper considers and asks for views on the tools available to complete the Land Register, including the use of statutory levers to speed up first registrations.

We have already met with key public bodies at our awareness sessions in Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and will continue to encourage more than 200 stakeholder groups to take part in the coming weeks.

The consultation document, covering letter and respondent information form are available on our website at www.ros.gov.uk/consultation

"Click your croft" winner announced

The winner of the “Click your croft” photography competition has been announced.

Heather Gray of Shetland won with her photo “Hentin Totties”, which shows a family of all ages working the land.

The competition, run in association with the Scottish Crofting Federation and the Crofting Commission, set out to explore what this traditional way of life means to crofters in 2014.

The Crofting Register was introduced in 2012 and provides crofters with legal certainty over their crofts. More information is available at www.crofts.ros.gov.uk.

Notifications FAQs now live

A frequently asked questions section for notifications has recently been added to the 2012 Act website. The section covers a wide range of FAQs that focus on how we are changing our systems and processes to meet the requirements of the Act, and how they will impact your organisation.

The information is available to view via the web pages or from a downloadable PDF document. The FAQ section can be viewed at: www.ros.gov.uk/2012act/notifications.html

We will be adding further information sections to the website in order to prepare your organisation for the 2012 Act. To receive email alerts when this information is available, as well as other 2012 Act updates, visit www.ros.gov.uk/2012act/ezine.html

Should you have any queries concerning the Act, please contact us at: 2012act@ros.gov.uk

New Head of Legal Services

We are pleased to welcome Andrew Crawley as our new Head of Legal Services.

Andrew has joined us from the Scottish Government Legal Directorate, where he headed up both legal and policy branches, most recently the environment legal branch.

He has extensive experience in private practice, mostly conveyancing and litigation for residential developers. Of his new role, Andrew said: “There’s a lot of change happening at RoS at the moment, with more to come in the future with exciting projects such as the completion of the Land Register.

“My main aim is to make sure that Legal Services provide the high quality, risk-focused legal advice that is needed to ensure RoS continues to deliver excellent service to the public.”

Service standards update

• 100% of Sasine, Chancery and Judicial Registers, ARTL and crofting applications have achieved their service standards
• 100% of standard first registrations completed within the target of 40 working days, with more than 99% complete in less than 30 days
• 99.5% of all dealings with whole completed within 30 working days, with most straightforward DWs despatched within two days
• 99.8% of all transfers of part received since October 2013 completed within nine-month target