A CALL is to be made in the Scottish Parliament this week for information on who owns Scotland.
It comes on the heels of a report from Community Land Scotland that has assessed the lack of transparency in land ownership.
MSP Andy Wightman will lead a debate week calling for information on the ownership, use and value of land to be made easily, openly and transparently available to the public.
Scotland lags behind many other countries over land ownership transparency, according to Wightman, Scottish Greens’ land reform spokesperson.
“It is currently far too difficult, time-consuming and expensive to obtain land information which is currently held in a variety of different places,” he said.
“The Scottish Government must commit to ensuring that information about the ownership, use and value of land is freely and easily available to the people of Scotland.”
Tomorrow, Wightman will argue that the creation of a comprehensive Scottish land information system would bring welcome social and economic benefits.
“A modern, democratic society requires open and transparent information on the ownership, use and value of land,” he said. “The creation of a comprehensive Scottish Land Information System could be transformational in improving citizens’ access to information around land and property. Existing efforts are a start but require better leadership and governance.”
The motion to be debated notes that the current target to register all land owned by Scotland’s public bodies this year is unlikely to be achieved and “regrets” that it remains “difficult, time-consuming and expensive for citizens in Lothian and across Scotland to obtain land information”.
The motion is supported by Ross Greer, John Finnie, Alison Johnstone, Lewis Macdonald, Mark McDonald, Mark Ruskell, Alex Rowley, Colin Smyth, Jackie Baillie, David Torrance, Patrick Harvie, Monica Lennon, Neil Findlay, Alex Cole-Hamilton, Mike Rumbles, Gail Ross, Angela Constance and Claudia Beamish.
The Community Land Scotland report points out that the main, centralised register of land is incomplete and not integrated with other sources containing information about, for example, legal entities which own land.
“There is currently a gap between the desire for a ‘publicly accessible’ land registry and the reality,” the report states. “Access for citizens to anything other than the most basic information is fragmented, expensive and complicated.”
One of the problems is that the apparatus of land registration is focused on keeping information regarding title to land, says the report, rather than on the collection and provision of information.
It goes on to point out that records provide only a snapshot of information, such as where land last changed hands before 2012, there is no guarantee that the owner on the title sheet is the current legal owner.
The report concludes: “The underlying framework for disclosing information about land does not work to promote its transparency: it is expensive and fragmented for a citizen.
“The benefit to transparency of Scotland’s legislative progress on requiring beneficial ownership information to be collected risks being limited if this information collection is implemented within the existing, flawed framework.”
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