Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the potential (a) number of job losses at and (b) redundancy costs to local authorities as a result of the proposed takeover of responsibility for LLC1 searches by the Land Registry.

At this stage it is not possible to quantify whether there will be any redundancies at local authorities or if so, how many there could be.

Land Registry’s current research suggests approximately 850 local authority staff deal with Local Land Charges as all or part of their roles. Land Registry acknowledges the possibility that there may be redundancies among these staff, but they will typically have additional responsibilities alongside their Local Land Charges role.

Further work is required to understand exactly how much time is spent by each individual officer on the Local Land Charges service. Land Registry will, of course, fulfil any TUPE obligations if applicable in any particular case.