Chamber and committees

Information on the number of days taken by NHS Tayside to carry out hospital post mortems is not held centrally.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland Standards for the Management of Post mortem Examinations (2003) recommend that NHS organisations should have local procedures in place to ensure that post mortem examinations are carried out within two working days of receipt of authorisation.

NHS QIS visited all services carrying out post mortems between November 2003 and June 2004 to assess them against the standards. The review reports that followed were published in February 2005 and the review found that all NHS organisations performed post mortem examinations within acceptable timescales.

This information is not held centrally.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) produced standards for the Management of Post mortem Examinations in 2003. The standards recommended that NHS organisations should have local procedures in place to ensure that post mortem examinations are carried out within two working days of receipt of authorisation.

NHS QIS visited all services carrying out post mortems between November 2003 and June 2004 to assess them against the standards. The review reports that followed were published in February 2005 and the review found that all NHS organisations performed post mortem examinations within acceptable timescales.

The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 imposes no set time-limits for the processing of applications for registration. The length of time that an application spends awaiting attention and undergoing processing depends largely on its complexity. As a generalisation, the more complex an application is, the more time it will take to complete registration.

Rule 9 of the Land Registration (Scotland) Rules 1980 provides for three different types of application to be made to the Land Register. Those are an application for first registration (FR), an application for registration of dealing with the whole of a registered interest in land (DW) and an application for registration of a transfer of part of a registered interest in land (TP).

FR and TP applications involve the preparation of new Land Register title sheets and title plans. They involve detailed, considerative examination of legal documents by experienced registration staff and can be complex and time-consuming. By contrast, DW applications involve relatively minor amendments to the Land Register and are generally more routine and quicker to complete. Since the norm of land registration is the attachment of a state indemnity (guarantee) to registered titles, which can mean the payment of public money to persons who suffer loss because of an error or omission in the Land Register, particularly complex cases require very careful handling by senior Land Register caseworkers. This may entail in-depth analysis of the preceding title history of property, thorough investigation of title problems, requisitioning of additional evidence from solicitors and complicated mapping procedures.

Although the Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 is silent as to the time limits for completion of cases, the Keeper does set annual targets for the completion of applications to the Land Register and the Sasine Register. The following table sets out the key application completion targets for 2011-2012 along with performance against the same. Some 87% of applications submitted to the property registers fall within these performance targets.

Turnaround Time Information for 2011-12

Identical completion targets have been set by the Keeper for 2012-2013. Currently all targets are being met.

For those FR applications not covered by time bound completion targets (what are termed complex transactions) the Keeper has set a target that by the end of March 2013 no FR application will be older than six months, except for those where the Keeper cannot complete because of factors outwith her control, such as court action, or by agreement with the submitting solicitor. The target that the Keeper has set for TP applications is for no such application to be older than nine months by October 2013.

The longest outstanding application to the Land Register relates to the registration of a property in Arbroath. An application to register a Disposition giving effect to a transfer of ownership was received by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland on 12 February 2001. Completion of the registration has been held up by court action and therefore completion of that registration is out with the control of the keeper.

Registers of Scotland does not maintain a record of the average time taken to complete an application for registration of domestic properties. This method of reporting was used for a limited range of application types previously. In 2007-08, RoS reviewed the appropriateness of capturing this information and concluded that the measure was not encouraging improved performance or necessarily demonstrating where efficiencies were being made.

The length of time that an application spends awaiting attention and undergoing processing depends largely on its complexity. As a generalisation, the more complex an application is, the more time it will take to complete registration.

Rule 9 of the Land Registration (Scotland) Rules 1980 provides for three different types of application to be made to the Land Register. Those are an application for first registration (FR), an application for registration of dealing of a whole registered interest in land (DW) and an application for registration of a transfer of part of a registered interest in land (TP).

FR and TP applications can be complex and time-consuming as they require the preparation of new Land Register title sheets and title plans and the examination of legal documents by experienced registration staff. By contrast, DW applications involve relatively minor amendments to the Land Register and are generally more routine and quicker to complete. Land registration provides a state indemnity (guarantee) to registered titles against errors and omissions in the Land Register and particularly complex cases require time and very careful handling by senior Land Register caseworkers. This may entail in-depth analysis of the preceding title history of property, investigation of title problems, requisitioning of additional evidence from solicitors and complicated mapping procedures.

The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 imposes no set time-limits for the processing of applications for registration. However, the Keeper does set annual targets for the completion of applications to the Land Register and the Sasine Register. The following table sets out the key application completion targets for 2011-2012 along with performance against the same. Some 87% of applications submitted to the property registers fall within these performance targets.

Turnaround Time information for 2011-12

Identical completion targets have been set by the Keeper for 2012-13. Currently all targets are being met.

For those FR applications not covered by time bound completion targets (termed complex transactions) the Keeper has set a target that by the end of March 2013 no FR application will be older than six months, except for those where the Keeper cannot complete because of factors outwith her control, such as court action, or by agreement with the submitting solicitor. The target that the Keeper has set for TP applications is to have no such applications older than nine months by October 2013.

The consultation is available in these formats on request, using the contact details provided on page 30 of the consultation document.

The summit will be held during the course of this calendar year. More detailed arrangements will be announced in due course.