asked the Minister for Justice the proposals, if any, to initiate improvements in the operation and productivity of the Land Registry Offices, the ratio of mappers to maps produced and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Land Registry Offices.
375.
The Land Registry has been undergoing a process of reorganisation since 1970. A central feature of the reorganisation is the allocation of all the work appertaining to a particular region of the country to a specific group which is comprised of legal, clerical and mapping staff. There are five such groups. This scheme, while not yet fully implemented, is already proving very successful and has considerably improved the efficiency of the Land Registry.
Another feature of the reorganisation is that, as part of a planned programme which will take some years to implement in full, maps of holdings are being attached to the folios to which the holdings relate. In this way a comprehensive record of title will be readily available to a registered owner. Copies of the document (folio and map combined) can be produced photographically thus obviating the need for the time-consuming process of drawing maps by hand.
A further improvement planned is the computerisation of the Land Registry records. It is not possible to say yet how soon this can be started.
Mapping staff are employed on a variety of tasks, of which the production of copy maps is only one. It is not, accordingly, possible to give a meaningful answer to the question about the ratio of mappers to maps.