I’ve now been in post as Keeper of the Registers of Scotland for over six months, and things certainly haven’t slowed down – every day is a learning day, and I continue to be impressed by the range of work that we do as a business, and our endeavour find new ways of working in order to better serve RoS customers.
I’ve mentioned previously how important it is to me that RoS works hard to engage with our customers in a variety of ways and I’ve worked hard to lead by example. I’ve welcomed a range of stakeholders to our offices in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, but it felt important for me to get out of the Central Belt and update customers around Scotland on our direction of travel. Crucially, I also wanted to hear about the things that matter to them, and to explore ways that we can provide them with the kinds of services, products, and support that add real value to their work.
I started my roadshow with a flight on a very small plane over to Orkney in September, where I met with members of the legal profession and other stakeholders. We had some thoughtful discussions, and I was also lucky enough to fit in a visit to Orkney Library and Archive where I had a chance to see a 616 year old disposition. It records the sale of some land at Holm in Orkney for “fyve cronis of the usual mone of Skotland” and two cattle which took place in 1402. It was fascinating to see what these documents used to look like in the days of vellum and beautiful handwriting, and while the way that we transact business may be very different, the principle of protecting land for the citizen remains the same.
From Orkney I flew directly to Shetland, and have so far visited Dundee, Ayr, Peebles and Dumfries, with more dates on the agenda.
So far the Ayr-Zetland campaign has given me much to reflect on, and I have every intention of ensuring that RoS remains customer-focused as we move beyond the autumn, and into 2019.
ROTC
I was delighted to attend my first Registrars of Title Conference in Canberra, Australia at the start of November. RoS hosted the ROTC in Scotland for the first time last year as part of our 400 year anniversary celebrations, and I had heard a lot about it, so I was excited to be addressing delegates and representing Scotland this year.
Scotland is home to the world’s oldest national land register, and, as such, we are respected for our long and impressive history in land and property registration, and in securing people’s rights. I was pleased to be able to talk about some of the new work that we are doing in order to stay at the forefront of land and property registration, and it was also great to meet up with other registrars from across the world. There are so many new developments, and exciting ideas brewing in the world of registration, and the ROTC was the perfect forum to come together and spend valuable time sharing best practice. It was also great to continue to develop Scotland’s relationships with our international partners.
An office fit for the 21st century
I was pleased that our Glasgow office at St Vincent Plaza (SVP) received recognition from the British Council of Offices (BCO) in October. SVP was designed and delivered as a new smart working environment that supports our digital transformation, while at the same time providing wellbeing benefits for RoS staff, and the move to SVP has been a great success in project management and delivery.
The hard work that went into making the move such a success hasn’t gone unnoticed. The BCO awarded SVP the Scottish regional award for Fit Out of Workplace in April, and on the back of this success we were delighted to be awarded the National Award in the same category last month.
The BCO National Awards programme sets out to recognise top quality office design and functionality, with the objective of setting the standard for excellence across the office sector in the UK. The judging panel described the project as a great example of the public sector leading the way in the delivery of excellence in offices.
They also praised those involved for their seamless and enthusiastic collaboration, which ultimately led to the delivery of an excellent working environment for our workforce.
I hope that everyone involved in the SVP Platform are proud of their hard work – I am certainly proud of their achievement and dedication to delivering such an impressive and successful project.
