Official Report 130KB pdf
Construction Contracts (Scotland) Exclusion Amendment Order 2006 (draft)
We asked the Executive to clarify a drafting point. Are we content with the answer? We can draw the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament to the draft order on the ground that further information was requested from and supplied by the Executive. That is fairly routine.
Robert Gordon University (Scotland) Amendment Order of Council 2006 <br />(SSI 2006/404)
Members will remember that there was a gap—the university had effectively taken a few gap weeks. We asked the Executive to explain the practical effect of a gap in provision: the order came into effect on 21 July whereas the revocation of the previous order took effect on 28 June. Because of that drafting error, the university was left without a constitution during those gap weeks. However, the good news is that it did not seem to matter.
If any officers of the university took important decisions under delegated powers during that time, are they covered?
I do not know.
Presumably, given the circumstances, the university would be wise to seek some form of homologation after the event—if it is not too much of a supererogatory expression to say "homologation after the event".
If indeed the university knows.
It might be interesting to ask those at the university what they did to cover decisions taken in that circumstance.
We have to report on the order to the lead committee and the Parliament in any case. Do you want me to suggest something further? Should we tell the people at the university? They might not even know.
Why not draw the matter to their attention?
The fact that the university had no constitution for that period?
Would that be a reasonable thing for us to do under our remit? It might be more appropriate to ask the Executive if it has discussed the issue with the university and satisfied itself that anything that was done by the university during that period is appropriately authorised—tempting as it is to start communicating with the wider world.
If we are not careful, people might quickly come to know that we exist, and we do not want that to happen.
TSE (Scotland) Amendment (No 3) Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/430)
We asked the Executive to provide clarification of the amendment to regulation 33 of the principal regulations. Members will have seen the response from the Food Standards Agency Scotland. We should draw the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament to the regulations either on the ground that their meaning could have been clearer or that they were defectively drafted.
Was this the algebraic problem of whether it was subparagraph (a), (b), (c) or whatever?
Yes.
I think that we established last week that when we say "either/or", we mean "both".
Yes, in a sense we are saying to the Executive, "Either way."
National Health Service (Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges) (Scotland) Amendment (No 3) Regulations 2006 (SSI 2006/440)
We put three questions to the Executive on the regulations and the committee will have seen the response. I suggest that we draw the regulations to the attention of the lead committee and the Parliament on the grounds that further explanation of the breach of the 21-day rule was requested from and supplied by the Executive; defective drafting was acknowledged by the Executive, but is not such as to affect the operation of the regulations; and information was requested from and supplied by the Executive on the progress of consolidation.
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Delegated Powers Scrutiny