PR Week has reported that Land Registry has cancelled a marketing tender and contract that it had planned to create a single marketing strategy for its whole business operation.
Today’s Conveyancer has spoken to a spokesperson at Land Registry and understands that this cancelled tender is part of the review of operations in light of the downturn in the property market.
A spokesperson indicated that the cancelled contract was part of the review of the whole cost base that was started last October.
As part of this cost review the spokesperson estimates that Land Registry:-
– it has around 2000 more staff than it will need by 2014 even though 1800 staff have left Land Registry since June 2008 without the need for compulsory redundancies
– it has double the space it needs costing approximately £30M per year to run.
– the collapse of the housing market caused a loss of nearly £130M last year and another loss will be occur this year.
– the revised cost programme is intended to leave Land Registry in a more efficient and more flexible structure for future years.
Marco Pierleoni the new Chief Registrar was appointed following the retirement of Peter Collis in January and seems to be continuing the overall review.
Conveyancers must feel that in the same way that they have had to restructure their businesses it would be inappropriate for the Land Registry just to raise its fees. This cost reduction is a welcome support to the residential property sector to ensure that the cost of moving doesn’t increase at this difficult time.
