Bracknell Forest Council and its land searches software supplier, Arcus Global, have apologised for the delay to local property sales and purchases caused through a significant data issue.
The borough’s land charges search system was switched to Arcus’ software at the end of January following the expiration of the previous contract with a different supplier.
It was anticipated that the switch to the new system would see searches paused for around 5 working days with the service resuming at the start of February.
However, unexpected and significant data issues occurred meaning the service could not return accurate and full results, which is unacceptable for people buying and selling property locally.
The data the council has from its old system is not in a format that can be easily synced with the new system. The data was complex and complicated and so required significant work to cross-check and review once data mapping issues were identified. This work is now largely complete, but some data links and targeted data still need to be worked on.
The council and Arcus are working to fix the issue as soon as possible but have to be confident the data pulls through to the land charges register correctly or the system risks returning inaccurate results.
Progress is being made and testing is being carried out at each stage to ensure accuracy.
Cllr Iskandar Jefferies, cabinet member for leisure, culture, public protection and democracy, said:
“We are very sorry that the issue with local land searches is still not fixed and is causing local house buyers additional concern during what is already a stressful and daunting process.
“When we switched to a new system at the end of January it was not clear or anticipated that we would need all our data reconfigured to ensure accuracy. This has taken some time to get right, despite working flat out on finding a solution. We cannot risk providing local house buyers, who are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on property, with inaccurate or faulty information.
“Our specialist teams have been working with Arcus’ team to find a solution as quickly as possible, and we are making good progress. Once the system is up and running accurately, we will prioritise processing outstanding searches. We will draft in extra staff to help clear the backlog and get people the information they need as soon as practically possible.”
Peter Dewsbury, chief executive officer of Arcus Global, said:
“We are aware of the disruption to the land charges service at Bracknell Forest Council. Arcus staff are working constructively with the council's team to restore a comprehensive service as soon as possible."
The council and Arcus have been holding twice daily progress meetings, and the matter is being tracked and escalated by senior staff at both organisations.
