My understanding is that just before Christmas, Paul Lowe, the Keeper of the Records of Scotland and Registrar General, suddenly resigned after a horrendous period in office - not just with the delayed and controversial 2022 census, but also with the complete inability to engage with the archive's user base. For those lamenting his departure, you have my condolences. His LinkedIn profile still lists him in post, as indeed does the NRS website.
There has been no official announcement about his departure (despite my asking the NRS about it on Twitter in December and again in January), but the post for his replacement is now being advertised here.
The following is the role as advertised:
Responsibilities
The role exercises considerable personal autonomy and decision making in the strategic leadership of NRS. Due to the significance and diversity of NRS’s functions, the post-holder is often required to engage in complex issues, in areas of public, media and political interest.
As Registrar General you would have a significant national leadership role overseeing the system of registration of life events (c125K births, deaths and marriages registered each year). Additionally, you would be responsible for the statutes relating to the formalities of marriage and civil partnership and the conduct of civil marriage.
NRS also produces a wide range of statistical publications in relation to Scotland’s demography, including key data on the COVID pandemic, drugs, homelessness and other deaths, these are in areas of significant Ministerial and media interest. It is also responsible for the operation of the NHS Central Register, a key individual spine holding over 35M records.
The Registrar General leads the census of Scotland’s population, which takes place every 10 years. This is one of the most significant programmes delivered in Scotland, gathering data from a population of c5.7M / over 2.8M households / establishments. Census data informs the allocation of billions of pounds of UK and Scottish Government public funds each year and the future delivery of services. In 2022 NRS undertook the collection phase of the first principally digital census in Scotland, one of only a few of this type undertaken globally.
Since civil registration began in 1855, the Registrar General has prepared a report annually, to be laid before Parliament. The Annual Review contains an overview of Scotland’s population, including statistics on births, deaths, life expectancy, migration, marriage and civil partnership, adoption, households and housing, and statutory registration. Statistics in the report support several of the Scottish Government’s key National Outcomes and measure of the Population Purpose Target.
As the Keeper you would be responsible for one of Scotland’s five national collections, holding the national archives of physical and digital records (74 linear kilometres / over 3.7 TB) spanning the 12th to the 21st centuries and the repository for the nation’s public and legal records. The Keeper is tasked to promote standards in public record keeping and assess compliance with the Public Records Scotland Act (PRSA) across over 250 public authorities, reporting on this annually to Parliament.
NRS makes available both physical (for example the Declaration of Arbroath) and digital records that are vital for education, cultural purposes, research, the legal profession and life events.
For those researching their ancestry, customers and stakeholders can visit in person or online through our Scotland’s People Centre which provides access to Statutory records, census returns, church records, valuation rolls and poor relief and migration records.
NRS (on behalf of the Registers of Scotland (RoS) Keeper) apply the Great Seal to all Acts of the Scottish Parliament. In addition, NRS also applies seals to letters patent and safely holds each Act of Parliament, including historic documents from Kings, Lords and parliament dating back prior to the Act of union. The organisation also oversees the statutory Scottish Tartan Register, these resources have a significant national and global interest.
Applications need to be submitted by 23.55 on Thursday 16th February 2023.
I would suggest one further useful thing that the new Keeper could do - engage with the archive's and the GROS's user base. As a public employee, the successful candidate will be working for them, and funded by their taxes. It's not too much to ask.
Good luck to the successful candidate, and here's hoping this can be a new chapter for the archive, whose staff and user base deserve so much better.
(With thanks to Fergus Smith)
Chris
My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
