This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Conveyancing and Executry Board to be abolished
03/05/2002
Provisions to abolish the Scottish Conveyancing and Executry Services Board will be included in the forthcoming Public Appointments and Public Bodies (Scotland) Bill.
The proposals were detailed by Justice Minister Jim Wallace in an answer to a Scottish Parliamentary Question today by Bill Butler MSP.
The proposed abolition had been the subject of consultation following the announcement of the outcome of the review of Non Departmental Public Bodies on 21 June 2001. Little support had been expressed for retention of the Board.
Mr Wallace said:
"The Board was set up to introduce competition with solicitors, but that aim has not been achieved. The low numbers of conveyancing and executry practitioners who have registered to date indicate that it is most unlikely that the number of registrations will increase to the point where the Board could become self-funding. Ministers cannot accept that a continuing burden should be placed on the taxpayer to subsidise the work of the Board and have therefore decided to promote its abolition.
"We shall introduce legislation soon to transfer the Board's regulatory responsibilities to the Law Society of Scotland. Existing conveyancing and executry practitioners will continue to able to practise in an employed capacity under the Society's supervision. Students on relevant law courses who wish to pursue such a career will continue to be able to do so and the Society will consider their applications for registration. It will not be possible to register as an independent qualified conveyancer from the date of the transfer, though those already registered as independent qualified conveyancers at that date will be able to continue to practise in that capacity.
"I am very grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for being prepared to take on this new responsibility, which they are well placed to assume in view of their long experience of the supervision of solicitors."
The Executive published the outcome of its review of Scottish public bodies on 21 June 2001 in the report Public Bodies : Proposals for Change. The report identified those public bodies Ministers believed should or could be abolished, merged or otherwise altered; and indicated that the Scottish Conveyancing and Executry Services Board was one of the bodies which Ministers proposed to abolish. Little support was expressed for retention of the Board. There are at present 17 conveyancing and executry practitioners registered with the Board, of whom only two are independent qualified conveyancers.
These measures are to be promoted in the Public Appointments and Public Bodies (Scotland) Bill soon to be introduced in the Scottish Parliament, which will set out the detailed basis for the transfer of regulatory responsibility to the Law Society of Scotland.