The Challenge

With a legacy dating back to 1862, HM Land Registry (HMLR) is responsible for safeguarding land and property ownership across England and Wales, covering over £7 trillion in assets. As a government department with 14 offices and over 5,000 staff, HMLR’s ambition was bold: to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity, and open data.

To support this vision, HMLR created the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate in 2017, uniting IT, data, and digital teams under one umbrella. With over 480 staff supporting 4,000+ internal users and 800,000 external customers, DDaT needed a modern, agile approach to service management.

The traditional ITIL-based structure divided into functional teams like Change and Problem Management, was no longer fit for purpose. HMLR needed a solution that could support a more flexible, service-centric model, improve collaboration, and scale across both IT and business functions.

The Solution

HMLR turned to its long-standing partner, Marval, whose service management platform had already been in use since 2000. What began as a tool for 45 IT support staff evolved into a powerful enterprise-wide solution supporting:

• 400+ IT support personnel

• 300+ non-IT support personnel

• 4,000+ self-service users

Marval MSM now underpins a wide range of ITIL processes and business-related workflows; from incident and change management to facilities requests and document retrieval.

A major transformation was the introduction of “Service Cells”. These were agile, multi-disciplinary teams responsible for managing all aspects of specific service bundles. Each cell uses Marval to handle incidents, changes, knowledge, and reporting, enabling real-time dashboards and closer relationships with service owners.

The self-service portal became a one-stop shop for staff, offering a consistent and intuitive experience across departments. Marval’s logical data structure and reporting tools also helped HMLR maintain its ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications.

The Results

The impact of Marval’s solution has been far-reaching:

• 6,500+ records logged per week, with 65% supporting non-IT business processes

• Agile Service Cells improved collaboration, job satisfaction, and customer relationships

• Real-time dashboards enhanced visibility and performance tracking

• Knowledge sharing and retrospectives fostered a culture of continuous improvement

•  Future-ready CMDB and supplier mapping now in progress

“Agile ways of working have helped foster a sense of pride and enjoyment in our work… It has enabled us to build much better relationships with our customers and allowed us to much better understand their needs.”
Hayley Butler, Lead of HMLR’s first Service Cell

With nearly two decades of partnership, HMLR continues to evolve its service management journey with Marval and is confident that the platform will support its future ambitions.