Independent Complaints Reviewer to the Land Registry
Summary of Annual Report 2000-2001
It is now three years since the establishment of the independent complaints review service. The ICR's role is to act as a fair and independent referee for dealing with complaints against the Land Registry.
In this year's annual report, the ICR highlights the way in which modern public services can demonstrate accountability to their customers and to the wider community. The report shows how the Land Registry has made a number of changes to policy, practice and procedure in response to recommendations made by the ICR arising from complaints.
The Independent Complaints Reviewer
Mrs Jodi Berg, a solicitor with extensive management experience in the private and public sectors, was appointed as the Land Registry's first Independent Complaints Reviewer (the ICR) in February 1998. She has recently been re-appointed for a further term. Her role is to act as an honest broker in investigating complaints about the Land Registry made by users of the service and their advisors. Jodi Berg is also ICR for the National Archives, the Charity Commission and the Housing Corporation.
The office of the Independent Complaints Reviewer is not part of the Land Registry and its service is free to Agency customers.
Details of how to obtain the full report are given at the end of this summary. It is also available on our website: www.icrev.org.uk
The report offers a brief description of the ICR service, outlines a number of the cases referred to the ICR during 2000/2001 and provides the ICR's overview of the way in which the Registry has responded to them.
Looking to the future
The Land Registry is facing a period of substantial change in which the Land Registration Act, which has governed its activities since 1925 will be replaced by new legislation paving the way for electronic conveyancing.
Speaking following her recent re-appointment Mrs Berg said: I was appointed to provide a fair and impartial service for the investigation of individual complaints made about the Land Registry. This places me in an ideal position to see, through the eyes of customers, how the Registry's service can be improved. This is why my recommendations are aimed both at putting matters right for an individual customer and at seeking to improve the future quality of Land Registry services to others. I am pleased to report that the Registry has accepted all of the recommendations I have made."
The report goes on to say that the Registry has responded positively to a number of recommendations made by the ICR, both in reports into individual complaints and in her previous annual reports.
The ICR regularly visits District Land Registries to learn at first hand how the Agency processes its vast workload of over 18.7 millions items of business a year.
Mrs Berg says " I continue to value my visits to District Land Registries and the insight they afford into the service the Agency provides. Wherever I go within the Registry, I am impressed by the courtesy and efficiency of front-line staff who are eager to do all they can to meet the Registry's published quality standards."
Whereas there was an initial reluctance to record all complaints received, procedures are now more robust and a truer picture of the level of complaints is provided. Nevertheless, the complaints process remains a mystery to most front-line staff and more needs to be done to demonstrate, in a meaningful way, how complaints fit into the Registry's strategic approach to improving customer service.
The ICR comments, "Land Registry staff are surprised to learn how many desks a case will cross before it reaches my office and how long this takes. On the whole, once a complaint has been recorded and passed to the Customer Service Manager, people lose touch with it completely and rarely receive any feedback. It is little wonder then that complaints are not generally perceived as learning opportunities." The Registry's Evaluation and Study Team is charged with ensuring that meaningful feedback is given in the future and the ICR welcomes this.
The ICR continues to be concerned about the time that it takes for someone to complete the Registry's internal complaints procedure so that they can refer a complaint to her office. The Registry has agreed to consider ways in which this process can be fast-tracked in appropriate cases, where issues are relatively straightforward.
The ICR service
This year we moved to new offices at New Premier House, Southampton Row in central London. Our staff are seconded from the Land Registry and combine expertise in complaints handling with a sound knowledge of Land Registry practice and procedure. They are accountable to the ICR for the way in which they work.
There is no filter to the ICR service and customers can contact us by phone, fax, e-mail, letter or in person. Our customers can be any individual or organisation wishing to complain about the actions or omissions of the Land Registry and the way that it has responded to their concerns. Our leaflet Seeking a Fair Resolution is designed to be clear and accessible and is available in Welsh and on audiotape. As well as being available from our office and from all Land Registry offices, it is also available from other public advice sources such as the Citizens Advice Bureau.
The ICR team sets high quality standards to guide our work and we have developed robust administrative arrangements to support these aims. This year, we were pleased to receive independent accreditation for the quality of service that we provide, when we were one of the first organisations in the UK to achieve a prestigious BSI award for our complaint management systems.
Although numbers of referrals remain relatively low, the legal and procedural nature of the Registry's activities tends to make them extremely complex. We continue to identify trends and to work with the Land Registry in using the information derived from complaints to improve its service to customers.
Complaint referrals
The report includes statistical information about complaints received and reviewed in 2000/2001. During the year we received 67 complaints, incorporating 111 allegations of maladministration. We completed investigations on 59 complaints and the ICR fully or partially upheld 19 of them. We are pleased to report that the numbers of complaint referrals has remained relatively stable over the last two years and this is a welcome indication that the Registry resolves the vast majority of complaints satisfactorily. At the end of the year, 27 complaints were still being investigated.
A substantial number of our complaint referrals arise out of disputes between neighbours, particularly boundary disputes. Often customers allege inaccuracies in the Registry's filed plans. This reflects the experience of the Land Registry, which regularly deals with complaints from customers, who have either sought exact boundary measurements from the Registry or tried to use the Registry's plans to 'measure' the length or breadth of their property, in order to settle an argument with their neighbours.
In her annual report the ICR reflects on how the Registry can help customers to understand the legal significance of its plans. She recommends that 'office copies' should carry a warning that the plan is subject to the 'general boundaries rule', which provides that the exact location of the legal boundary within the width of a physical feature, such as a hedge or a bank, is undecided.
A considerable number of complaints also arise from poor conveyancing practice and a failure to explain the significance of deeds and/or registration documents, which leaves property owners floundering when problems arise later on. Land Registry staff also find that the poor completion or incomplete presentation of applications is a major cause of delays. The ICR comments that there is clearly a significant need to 'raise the game' of many of those involved in property transactions and registration on behalf of their clients, in anticipation of electronic conveyancing.
Meeting our targets
"We found your staff extremely helpful and very courteous and felt our concerns were dealt with very efficiently." Complainant
We set ambitious speed of service targets. Once again this year we have achieved most of our targets. We responded to all telephone calls and correspondence speedily (usually within 24 hours) and dealt with all referrals for advice and assistance well within our seven day limit (again usually within 24 hours).
For 2000-2001, the average time taken to complete investigations was 23 weeks. Pressures of work at our office and at the Land Registry both caused delays in the speed with which we dealt with casework. Whilst our experience and positive feedback from complainants show that the thoroughness and quality of the investigation remains paramount and cannot be compromised to speed, nevertheless, we are determined to set challenging targets and to find effective ways of meeting them in the current year.
We regularly seek the views of complainants and Land Registry staff to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our customers. Responses to our customer service questionnaires this year showed a welcome 100% acknowledgement of our independence and 100% satisfaction rate with our leaflet and approval of its clarity and usefulness. In responding to questions about our practice and procedures, all those who responded to specific questions regarding communication were satisfied that we had kept them informed throughout the process. In response to our general questions about our service, once again this year we are pleased to report that 100% of complainants found the ICR and her staff courteous and helpful.
Our respondents were also complimentary about both our speed of response to communications and our efficiency. However, not all respondents were happy with our investigation and, in general, this related to the outcome of the ICR's review. During the year, the ICR responded to 3 complaints, 2 of which were about her decisions. Despite this, on the whole, customers whose complaints had not been upheld did not consider that any part of our handling of the review could have been better.
Land Registry respondents confirmed that independent review is now an accepted and respected addition to the Registry's own response to complaints. As one member of Land Registry staff commented on our intervention "It allowed a consensus to be reached where one had previously looked unavailable. The demonstrable independence of the system meant that no reasonable argument regarding the outcome could be offered."
In response to comments made about a lack of information on how to refer complainants to our office and about the service that we provide, we have arranged for the production and Agency-wide distribution of a 'desk aid' and other promotional materials to resolve this problem.
Peter Collis, Chief Land Registrar says:
"I am delighted, once again, to have the opportunity to respond to our Independent Complaint's Reviewer's Annual Report.
HM Land Registry is a fine organisation, utterly committed to excellence in customer service. It is extremely heartening that Jodi Berg, who inevitably sees some of the less impressive examples of our work, also believes we have much to be proud of. But that pride, however well earned, should never lead to complacency. Jodi Berg's Report provides ample evidence of the value of an Independent Complaints Reviewer in ensuring that we always strive for further improvement.
The main purpose of any investigation by the Reviewer is to see justice done, not only for the customer but also for the Registry. But each investigation also provides an invaluable opportunity to look at how things were done and whether they could have been done better. We have been determined to make the most of these opportunities. As Jodi Berg notes in her Report, we have put together a team within the Land Registry whose job is to consider all her recommendations systematically and to make sure that we put worthwhile ideas for improvement into practice. I hope this will reassure those of our customers who had cause to refer their complaints to Jodi Berg, that not only have their complaints been investigated fully, but that we are doing all we can to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
I believe that, following a very positive Quinquennial Review and with the introduction of the Land Registration Bill into Parliament, the Land Registry has a tremendous future. I am in no doubt that a rigorous Independent Complaints Review process is an integral part of that future. On behalf of the Land Registry Board, I would like to thank Jodi Berg and her small team for their unstinting efforts on behalf of our customers - and indeed on behalf of us all."
And finally...
The report looks to the future and to the changes that can still be made to improve our own and the Registry's service to customers.
Mrs Berg concludes "My role as Independent Complaints Reviewer for the Land Registry remains both challenging and stimulating. I thank my assistants, Andrew Robertson and John Calvert, for their outstanding contribution to our work and for coping so well with the growing demands of my office. I renew my commitment to the ICR process and I look forward to the coming year with enthusiasm."
Copies of the full annual report and copies of this summary can be obtained, free of charge, from:
The Office of the Independent Complaints Reviewer
New Premier House
150 Southampton Row
London WC1B 5AL
Tel: 020-7278 6251
Fax: 020-7278 9675
e-mail: enquiries@icr.gsi.gov.uk