Subordinate Legislation Committee, 04 Sep 2001
Meeting date: Tuesday, September 4, 2001
Official Report
131KB pdf
Child Minding and Day Care (Registration and Inspection Fees) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2001 (SSI 2001/214)
Item 5 on the agenda is instruments subject to annulment.
The regulations breach the 21-day rule. I do not know whether we are satisfied with that. The regulations increase fees, but the instrument is not out of order. Our comments on the instrument are minor, given what we will be saying about other instruments.
I wonder, given what we heard previously about the National Audit Office, whether it is possible to be clearer about how we cost things. Registration and inspection fees are important, especially in this city, given the current difficulty that we have with one outstanding case, as are the difficulties that childminders face, albeit rightly, in registering. Are there any other comments?
It is a very bureaucratic piece of legislation, but as you pointed out convener, it is pointy-end stuff that affects people's pockets. The instrument could be clearer.
On the breach of the 21-day rule, practically every instrument that is before us today has breached the 21-day rule. We should not just say to the Executive that it has done so in this case, we should ask why it is happening in almost every case. What is the reason? Is it seasonal?
We have always made the point that we view instruments on foot-and-mouth disease as exceptional, but that situation is lessening now, so we can raise the breach of the 21-day rule in an overarching letter.