Guidance

New burdens information

Updated 28 March 2024

Applies to England and Wales

1. Overview

This document outlines HM Land Registry’s position for funding local authorities under the new burdens doctrine for carrying out specific activities associated with its Local Land Charges Programme.

2. Introduction

HM Land Registry is creating a national Local Land Charges Register, which will replace the registers currently held separately by 331 local authorities across England and Wales. The service went live in July 2018, allowing local authority areas to transfer to the new register in a phased manner.

This change was enabled by the Infrastructure Act 2015 which amended the Local Land Charges Act 1975, to allow HM Land Registry to provide the statutory service. The required secondary legislation, the Local Land Charges Rules 2018 and the Local Land Charges Fees (England) Rules 2018, came into force in 2018.

While the legislation is in force, it only becomes effective in a local authority area when the local authority transfers its local land charges service to HM Land Registry.

This guidance applies to all local authorities in England and Wales who have statutory responsibility for the local land charges service before the Infrastructure Act 2015 takes effect in their area.

3. Stakeholder engagement

HM Land Registry established a new burdens working group in 2016, consisting of:

• HM Land Registry
• the Local Government Association
• the Local Land Charges Institute
• the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC)
• representatives from a range of local authorities

This group reviewed the nature of the work required and agreed on a matrix of activities and measures for which new burdens payments will be considered.

HM Land Registry has engaged with local authorities as part of the preparation for the Local Land Charges programme. The intention was to get an initial understanding of each organisation’s readiness and ability to meet the requirements of the migration and to support the future register service. The information and feedback from the working group informed the new burdens assessment.

4. New burdens

When considering where burdens may apply, HM Land Registry has applied the principles contained in DLUHC’s new burdens doctrine, published in 2011.

The doctrine states that:

broadly, a new burden is defined as any policy or initiative which increases the cost of providing local authority services

and

only applies where central government requires or exhorts local authorities to do something new or additional.

5. Splitting the new burdens assessment into 2 parts

The assessment is split into 2 parts:

• migration (or pre-live) burdens
• live service burdens

We split the new burdens assessment because:

• of the significant nature of the new burdens assessment
• information was required from local authorities
• the register was in an initial stage of development at the start of the burdens discussions

6. New burdens assessment for migration (pre-live) stage

The assessment for this stage accounts for work up to the point at which the Local Land Charges service is transferred to HM Land Registry.

The working group has considered what work, activities and other costs fall within the definition of a new burden, and also what the appropriate methods would be to assess the scale of these costs.

The group has agreed on the following in the migration (pre-live) stages:

• specific project administration tasks
• extraction of data from current digital systems, where a local authority has these
• preparation of data for migration (over and above current statutory responsibilities)
• provision of information to allow HM Land Registry to create spatial extents where none currently exist
• providing updates to the register both during migration and during the notice period prior to the migrated register becoming live
• resolution of enquiries arising during the migration process

Additionally, some local authorities may have costs associated with unfunded capital expenditure, intended to be repaid from search fee income or additional costs arising from contractual arrangements for outsourced services. These will be considered on a case by case basis.

Section 7 sets out the activities that are expected to place a new burden on local authorities, based on the discussions and agreement of the working group. HM Land Registry will make funding available to meet the reasonable costs of these activities in accordance with the new burdens doctrine.

Any activities not listed were assessed as not creating an additional burden.

Work required by local authorities to make data comply with existing statutory responsibilities was determined not to be a new burden. An example of this is ensuring the register is complete and accurate in accordance with existing legislation prior to migration taking place. This is a current responsibility, not a new burden.

7. Activities for which burdens may be payable

These are the proposed Local Land Charges-related activities for which funding may be provided to local authorities.

7.1 Project administration

Specific project administration tasks required of local authorities to complete the transfer of the Local Land Charges service to HM Land Registry.

This may include a number of agreed fixed and periodic meetings with associated administration and preparation.

7.2 Data extraction

Extraction of data from local authority systems will be completed using a mixture of HM Land Registry, supplier and local authority resource.

The amount of local authority resource required will depend on whether they complete data extraction work themselves, or whether the appointed supplier does this.

Burdens will apply to local authority activity to prepare and extract data to migrate to HM Land Registry. It is anticipated this will be for a maximum of 2 datasets. It could apply to the following:

• a textual dataset
• a spatial dataset
• both of these datasets
• none of these datasets, if a supplier does this

7.3 Data preparation

Data preparation includes specific tasks that need to be undertaken to ensure our suppliers can take data from local authorities.

Data preparation for digital datasets

This work is included in activity 7.2.

Data preparation for paper, microfiche and electronic datasets

Burdens will apply to local authority activity to prepare non-digital data sets, including (where necessary):

• minor amendments to documents, such as removing notes or staples
• creating an inventory of records
• checking returned records against inventory
• other ancillary activities relating to data preparation (for example arranging for on-site scanning)

7.4 Non-spatial data preparation

Where local authorities do not currently have spatial data that can be extracted, they will be required to provide sufficient information for a supplier to create a spatial extent.

Burdens will apply to one or more of the following:

• providing documents to enable a spatial extent to be created
• creating a spatial extent where one does not exist
• verifying spatial extents created by a supplier
• a combination of the above

7.5 Register updates before the local authority area is live

It is anticipated there will be a period of time during which local authorities will need to undertake activities to record updates or dual key registrations. This will be in addition to maintaining their own Local Land Charges register, which will remain the statutory register until go live for their area at HM Land Registry.

Burdens will apply to local authorities one of the following:

• keeping a record of register updates for a set period, which will subsequently be updated before go-live
• updating the HM Land Registry Local Land Charges Register alongside their own for a set period

7.6 Miscellaneous enquiries

During the migration process, it is anticipated there will be a range of enquiries from suppliers and/or HM Land Registry that local authorities will need to deal with.

Burdens will apply to local authorities dealing with enquiries about data, during the migration process.

7.7 Other costs by exception

It is possible that local authorities will identify areas of additional work they have had to complete. We will consider these by exception and evaluate them.

Additionally, some local authorities may have costs associated with unfunded capital expenditure, intended to be repaid from search fee income or additional costs arising from contractual arrangements for outsourced services. We will consider costs on a case by case basis.

8. Review

The principles of the new burdens assessment apply to all local authorities that have transferred their LLC service to HM Land Registry.

In October 2020, HM Land Registry conducted an internal review of the burdens assessment model. This was undertaken because differences between assumptions and the actual work emerged after local authorities began transferring their services to the national register.

The result of the review provided the basis for more realistic assessments. The start point for burdens calculations and periodic meetings are now standardised at an earlier point in the process. Burdens calculation now begin when the data analysis dashboard is first run.

9. Live service burdens

The new burdens working group also considered any burdens that could be payable when a local authority area is live on HM Land Registry’s Local Land Charges Register. The group agreed that further evidence was required to understand the full impact on local authorities when their register migrated to the national register. It was agreed that a review to assess the impact should be conducted 3 years after the Local Land Charges Register launched.

Following a consultation with local authorities and stakeholders, HM Land Registry reviewed the new burdens payments in November 2021. The assessment considered the impact of the burdens. This review did not identify a net burden to local authorities after the third year. As a result, there was no change to the burdens arrangements.

Local authorities continue to receive payment for the first three years of their LLC service transfer to HM Land Registry to cover:

• additional activities undertaken in the period immediately after a local authority goes live
• work in applying to add, vary and cancel charges that is additional to that required under the previous process

HM Land Registry works with suppliers to integrate the application programming interface (API) that was developed for local authority systems. Integration is available to all local authorities who wish to automate the process of adding, varying, or cancelling charges in live service. If the local authority undertakes work to develop their own API integration instead of using one provided by a supplier, this work would be included in the burdens payment.

County councils have also been considered as part of the assessment as they will need to change their practice when the LLC service is first implemented in a local authority area that affects them. County councils will be eligible for payments for the same activities as listed above. They will also receive payment for time they will spend preparing to use the new LLC service, which for local authorities is included in the migration (pre-live) part of the assessment.

DLUHC or HM Land Registry will make burdens payments alongside the payments for migration (pre-live) burdens.

10. Local authority funding

Decisions on the level of funding that each local authority may receive, and the final details of the agreement, will follow discussions with individual local authorities.

For each local authority, an assessment of the amount to be paid for pre-live (migration) will be made following formal engagement between the authority and HM Land Registry for the purposes of migrating the register. At this point, a realistic assessment will be possible due to:

• knowing the volume of charges which have been migrated
• an agreement being reached as to the duration of the migration process

Both these pieces of information are required to calculate the amount to be paid.

For live service burdens, payment for the one-off activities and first three years of additional work to add, vary and cancel charges will be made at the same time as the pre-live (migration) payment.

DLUHC or HM Land Registry will make the payments to local authorities.