Land records about to end paper chase

Computerising land titles is a big challenge. IT editor CHRIS BARTON looks at the old system, and asks how its $150m replacement could be improved.


Standing among shelves and shelves of land title and conveyancing documents, we are informed that there are around 30km of these in the country and that shelf space is growing at the rate of 1.5km a year.

We are in the Wellington region office of Land Information New Zealand (Linz) - so we can see first hand what the department is up against. The tour begins among the conveyancing documents.

Yes, there is an awful lot of paper here.

We are taken through the process of finding a land title. Look up the CT (certificate of title) number on the computer. Fill in a form and hand it across the counter with the $7 fee. In a few minutes, the staff member returns with a copy.

It is a similar process for getting a copy of a survey plan. Find the DP (deposited plan) number on the computer. Get the microfilm, view it, then get a print costing $10 to $14.

No one mentions that these fees have increased since July 1998 to help pay for New Zealand's most expensive Government computer system.

Or that the public will have to pay extra - between $13 million and $17 million a year until June 2003 - because the $150 million project is a year behind schedule.

We move on to the more complex lodgement of plans and titles. Documents arrive on the same floor the searches are done on, but are then bundled up and numbered for transport to the floor below.

The place has the look of an old-style Government department, with regulation furniture and staff who seem to have served there for years. It could easily be a set for the Roger Hall TV series Gliding On.

Wellington regional manager Helen Trim is well versed in the lingo of the times. She describes the staff on this level as the "knowledge workers."

She is quite correct - except that the term is usually applied to people who use computers.

Here, although there are a few PCs dotted about, things are still decidedly manual.

We meet up again with the bundles of newly delivered documents - neatly held in blue folders and tidily bound with string - at some more shelves. From there the knowledge workers take the bundles and apply their knowledge to them - making sure the documents meet all the statutory requirements.

Eventually, the pieces of paper work their way down the line to staff who complete the certificate of title, by typing the correct information of who owns what - on electronic typewriters.

A similar routine happens with survey plans - a paper chain of documents and plans passing from one surveyor to another for checking and validation.

It is worth noting that although the operation is manual and cumbersome, it does appear to work quite well.

"Oh yes," says one of the knowledge workers. "We've had 150 years of doing this in New Zealand."

But it is the enormous, never-ending paper chase that the Landonline computer project aims to address - first by turning millions of titles and plans into electronic format.

That data conversion process has already begun through a contract with American computer services giant EDS worth about $50 million over two years. Another $50 million - over five years - is also committed for computer facilities management, again by EDS.

The design and software development has been done by PricewaterhouseCoopers at a cost of about $20 million.

As well as database design, the firm has developed detailed workflow software not only to mimic the existing manual processes but also to apply business intelligence rules so that much of the decision-making around plans and titles can be automated.

If it works - and there are signs from the Dunedin office, the first to be computerised, that it does - integration of land titles and survey plans will be state-of-the-art.

But that is just for stage one - $120 million worth and not due for completion until mid-2002.

Stage two - a further $25 million to $30 million - is still to be approved.

What will the public get for the money? At the end of stage one, not a lot. True, the system should deliver much greater efficiencies, improving turnaround of lodgements from the present 10 to 15 days to something much less.

With stage two - enabling surveyors and lawyers to lodge plans and title documents electronically - the aim is for a turnaround time of 24 hours.

Landonline will also mean faster searching and accessing of information by lawyers and surveyors, who will pay annual software licence fees to link to Landonline via a virtual private network.

While it can be argued that there will be considerable time savings for lawyers and surveyors, they will also have to carry the cost of connecting their offices to Landonline.

Whether the service will produce the promised savings - resulting in lower conveyancing and surveying bills for property buyers - remains to be seen.

Some time in October, the Dunedin Linz office expects to sign up its first clients - a milestone many will watch with interest.

Members of the public, however, will still have to visit Linz offices if they want to search titles or plans themselves.

And there may well be fewer of those to visit. The intention is to close seven of the 12 regional Linz offices and shed 200 of the 510 operational staff in the process.

The question no one has yet considered is: with such a state-of-the-art computer system, why not make it accessible to everyone via a web browser over the internet?

The notion appears to be a perfect fit with recently announced "e-government" objectives of providing much greater online access to Government information and services.

Landonline project staff argue that when the project was conceived - early in 1996 - the software to deliver plans and titles via the net was simply not available.

But it is now. Staff reluctantly acknowledge that "a browser front-end"is being considered in stage two.

Linz chief executive Russ Ballard says the original aim of Landonline - "a secure national title and survey system available from remote locations with a turnaround time of 24 hours for 90 per cent of survey and title transactions" - still holds true.

He points out it does not take much imagination to see what that reality might deliver.

And how it might radically change the nature of conveyancing and surveying.

It is unfortunate that a Government department - perhaps unable to move on from more than a decade of user-pays mentality - cannot see just how radical its computer system could be.

It still talks of serving its clients - surveyors and lawyers - forgetting that behind those professionals lie its real clients, the public.

But perhaps the idea of serving the public is not that alien to the staff at the Wellington Linz office. Asked how long user-pays charges have been in effect, one of them can remember a time when getting land title information was free.


Landonline: what will we get for our $150m?

The moment of truth is approaching for the country's most expensive Government computer.

In October, the $150 million (or so) Landonline system, handling land titles and survey plans electronically, should sign up its first clients.

Initially, the project, which is over a year behind schedule, will operate out of the Dunedin office of Land Information New Zealand.

If the system works properly, there should be greater efficiencies in the turnaround of work, but some teething troubles have emerged during trials.

According to one report, surveyors have found title plans which took five to seven working days to process manually taking up to 25 days to handle electronically.

Another activity related to property titles, which usually took up to 10 days, was reportedly taking twice as long on the new system.

Dunedin is just the frontrunner of the $120 million stage one, not due for completion until mid-2002.

Stage two, which will allow surveyors and lawyers to electronically lodge plans and title documents, will cost a further $25 million to $30 million. It is still awaiting cabinet approval, with discussion scheduled for October.

The final costs are still uncertain. An Auditor-General's report on the costs of the Government's large technology projects concluded that the estimate of $144 million had only a 15 per cent probability of being met.

A $149 million cost had only a 50-50 chance of being met, said the report, based on June 1999 calculations but issued only in April.

In May, Parliament's primary production select committee recommended that Land Information New Zealand be allowed to proceed with the project after receiving assurances that it could keep within a $145 million to $155 million cost frame.

The police's failed Incis crime-fighting computer system cost taxpayers $107.5 million.