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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5F-02692

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 22 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 October 2018

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S5O-02468

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed closure of the primary care emergency service facility in St Andrews.

Question reference: S5W-18995

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 2 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-18428 by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018, for what reason the number of contractors has increased by 256% since 2015-16.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that the profile of Registers of Scotland’s staff has changed over the last ten years, in particular since 2012-13. Principally that reflects the fact the organisation terminated its strategic partnership agreement with BT on 30 November 2012 and brought the vast majority of its IT estate back in-house. The outsourcing contract with BT had been in place for 8 years and less than 10 people transferred under TUPE regulations from BT to RoS, resulting in an inevitable lack of existing IT skills within the organisation, therefore, it was necessary to grow our IT capability and capacity quickly. Furthermore, “Designated Day” for the introduction of the 2012 Act was 8 December 2014 and this new legislation required significant work to our IT systems/applications, involving the upgrade of existing systems and the development of new on-line services. With BT no longer contracted to support delivery of this work and the timescales for development and upgrades set by the introduction of the Act, recruitment decisions were taken on the need for and availability of a wide range of IT skills in a fiercely competitive labour market, although we actively sought to recruit people into permanent roles wherever possible and continue to do so.

Additionally, in October 2015, the Deputy First Minister announced that Registers of Scotland should build Scotland’s Land Information Service (ScotLIS) as a digital service that would become the platform of choice for land and property information. Specific IT skills were required in order to meet this demand and therefore contract staff were used at this time to complement our existing workforce and this enabled the successful launch of ScotLIS on 24 October 2017. Had RoS remained in the outsourced contract, the costs would have been higher than our current staffing costs and would not have included development of more new services, such as ScotLIS, or the decommissioning of legacy applications. The majority of contract staff are now involved in the initial development of more new digital services. The use of contractors provides flexibility and scalability aligned to our customer needs. The majority of these staff won’t be required to maintain and improve the services once they are initially built, which makes the use of contract staff rather than permanent staff more appropriate at present.

Question reference: S5F-02655

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 01 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 October 2018

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S5O-02390

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 September 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on there being a UK-wide referendum on the final terms of the Brexit deal.

Question reference: S5F-02604

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 17 September 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 September 2018

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S5W-18424

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there is a reported backlog of land registry applications.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that in excess of 70% of land register applications are completed within 5 days and in the last financial year the average waiting time was 26.5 days. However, a number of applications have taken longer than anticipated. This is largely attributable to the Keeper and stakeholders working through the practical challenges presented by the introduction of the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012 in December of 2014, including the Keeper undertaking to clear all cases submitted under the previous legislation within one year. Additionally, as land register coverage matures the nature of titles undergoing first registration has changed and Registers of Scotland have required to adapt to that.

Question reference: S5W-18427

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the longest waiting time has been for a land registry application in each of the last three years, and what the longest waiting time is currently.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that she has instigated a plan to clear the current backlog, which has already resolved over 1000 of the oldest applications, with an initial target of ensuring by the end of this year that no applicants have been waiting longer than 2 years. The oldest application currently with Registers of Scotland is 2 years and
‎ 4 months old (against a service standard of 9 months). The position for each of the last three years is shown in the following table:-

Year	Longest waiting time by number of working days
2015-16	3790 days
2016-17	3869 days
2017-18	2069 days

Question reference: S5W-18426

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people awaiting the processing of a land registry application in each of the last three years have informed Land Registry Scotland that they have had to take out a standard variable rate loan as a result of the delay, and whether it has conducted an assessment of the financial impact of this on applicants.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that historically lenders would not usually require registration applications to be completed before offering customers new deals or rates. Recently some lenders have changed their position. In such cases, where the Keeper is made aware, by a customer or their solicitors, that registration delays are having this sort of impact then the registration application will be expedited. The total number of cases in which this has been done, across the last three years, is 12.

Question reference: S5W-18423

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when the last Registers of Scotland staff survey took place, and when the next one will take place.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that that Registers of Scotland invite colleagues to participate in the annual civil service people survey (CSPS), which last took place in October 2017. 727 colleagues and external staff (51.4%) chose to take part in the survey.

The next CSPS will open on 1 October 2018 and run for one month, with high level results available from the end of November and detailed comparative data available in December 2018.

Registers of Scotland also undertook a Colleague Wellbeing survey in 2017 which provided insight into colleagues’ physical and psychological wellbeing. This will be repeated in late 2018 with comparative data available in early 2019.

Registers of Scotland further supplements this insight by participating in Investors in People (IiP) assessments which include annual surveys and interviews with samples of colleagues over a three year period. Registers of Scotland was awarded in a Silver status in July 2018 following independent analysis of colleague feedback.