Agency admits serious problems at Titles Office THE NATIONAL Land Agency (NLA) has admitted that its operations were being severely affected by a staff shortage following its establishment as an executive agency just over three months ago. However, it said employees of its four departments were being assessed and a recruitment exercise for positions is under way. The NLA was formed through the amalgamation of four state agencies dealing with land titles and related matters - Titles Office, Survey, Lands and Land Valuation Departments - which now operates under one body. The Gleaner reported last month that operations at the titles office have been thrown in a tailspin following a sharp reduction in staff as a result of the creation of the NLA. According to the Government's news agency, JIS, at least one department has been severely affected as about 23 officers from the Titles Office have opted for redeployment or retirement, while others were not successful in the assessment and could not be placed. According to Constance Trowers, Director of Titles, the agency has lost some of its technical staff with years of experience and as such the turnaround time for processing titles has been affected. "The department has lost four of its eight signing officers, a highly technical area, but the agency has moved swiftly and has recruited four attorneys, who are expected to start working this month," the JIS quoted her as saying. "In addition, a legal officer is to be upgraded to signing officer status by September 1, and the training programme for that officer has been accelerated." Overtime work Other measures have been put in place to clear a three-month backlog of titles, including overtime work by members of staff and the hiring of temporary workers for at least six months, according to the JIS. Additional computers and a high-speed printer are also being acquired to speed up the process. Mrs. Trowers said the Office has been scanning certificates of title over the past few years and has completed about 50 per cent or about 400,000. Computers were also being installed in the search area to allow customers the opportunity to view the scanned titles on-line, she said. The office was aiming to scan the balance of titles within 18 months, and as a result would employ additional staff to speed up the process. According to Mrs. Trowers, the NLA was also working on an "e-governance project", by providing a mechanism to access the information it has in the Agency (Land Valuation, Surveys and Titles Data) via the Internet, using a subscription service. The project will allow clients of the NLA to stay in their offices and access the data, as of April 2002, she said. However, only data converted up to that time will be available on-line, including the valuation roll, all titles scanned as at that date and the cadastral index map for St. Catherine. By September 2002, the cadastral index map for Kingston and St. Andrew should also be available. The NLA also has plans for a new customer service unit, which would liaise directly with clients and deal with issues relating to cases lodged, problems being encountered and to generally assist clients in the search area. A document management system, which is crucial to the proper running of the agency, will also be introduced. That is expected to reduce the incidence of fraud, as the NLA will be able to trace documents more easily. Mrs. Trowers said the NLA has also recently installed cameras, as a means of monitoring the use of documents which are "extremely important".
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