Local Government and Communities Committee, 12 Nov 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Official Report 212KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 (Scheme of Assistance) Regulations 2008 (Draft)

Good morning everyone and welcome to the 28th meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee in 2008. As always, I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones and BlackBerrys.

Agenda item 1 is on subordinate legislation in the form of a draft affirmative instrument. The committee will take evidence on the regulations from Stewart Maxwell MSP, Minister for Communities and Sport. I welcome him and his officials to the meeting. He is accompanied by Government officials Roger Harris, head of private sector policy delivery; David Blair, unit head in the private housing quality unit; and David Bookbinder, policy adviser in the private housing quality unit.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee did not draw the attention of the Local Government and Communities Committee to the instrument. The instrument has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve the instrument before its provisions can come into force. It is normal practice to give members the opportunity to question the minister and his officials prior to the start of the formal debate on the instrument because officials cannot participate in the debate. I give the minister the opportunity to make some introductory remarks, although he may want to hold those back until the formal debate starts. I am happy for him to do whichever he wishes.

I hope that it will assist the committee if I make some opening remarks at this point, if that is acceptable.

I welcome that.

The main aim of the draft Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 (Scheme of Assistance) Regulations 2008 is to set out a revised system of financial assistance for the cost of adaptations to the home of a disabled person. The 2006 act paved the way for creating a clearer distinction between financial assistance for adaptations and assistance for repairs and improvements. It does that by giving ministers powers to make regulations specifying what form of financial assistance should be given for certain types of work.

Our justification for a separate approach for adaptations is that home owners wanting to repair and improve their home should generally not rely on public funding to do so, although grants will remain an appropriate form of assistance in particular local circumstances. However, there is an altogether stronger argument for using public money to carry out adaptations to help disabled people. Adaptations rarely boost the value of a property and can sometimes detract from it.

Under the current system, essential work to provide bathroom or toilet facilities for a disabled person attracts a mandatory grant. Other work, such as adaptations to facilitate access to the property, does not attract a mandatory grant, although councils can, and sometimes do, give grants at their discretion. Currently, the minimum grant for adaptations is 50 per cent, with entitlement beyond that determined by a test of resources that is defined in regulations. Many local authorities impose a £20,000 upper limit on the cost of works that are eligible for grant.

I will briefly summarise the main changes that the regulations set out. First, we are widening the scope of mandatory grant to include most essential structural adaptations. Extending a property to provide additional living accommodation will be excluded from mandatory grant, partly because such work will normally boost the property value and partly on the ground of cost to local authorities. However, they have the power to fund such works.

Secondly, we are abolishing the prescribed test of resources and setting a minimum grant of 80 per cent for adaptation works, which will be 100 per cent where the applicant receives certain benefits. That leaves the amount of any top-up beyond 80 per cent—for those not entitled to 100 per cent—to the local authority's discretion. That will create a consistent approach across the country and it addresses the stigma that older and disabled people often feel when applying for means-tested assistance.

Thirdly, we are placing a duty on councils to ensure that, where essential adaptation work is not covered by grants, owners receive proper advice on funding work rather than, as now, simply being left to deal with the shortfall. Those changes should be viewed in conjunction with the 2006 act, which prohibits the setting of upper grant limits for adaptation work. Under the new provisions, local authorities will take account of the full cost of the adaptation work in considering the financial assistance that will be provided.

Finally, with the abolition of the prescribed test of resources, the regulations will delegate to local authorities the power to assess an applicant's contribution. That change affects grant for adaptations and for repairs and improvements, subject to the provisions on the minimum percentage grant for adaptations. The decision not to include a prescribed test of resources is a keystone of the scheme of assistance. For adaptations, it heralds a simpler approach—an automatic minimum percentage grant. For repairs and improvements, it introduces a significant change of approach whereby, through our local test of affordability, assistance will be based on the balance of what an owner can afford to pay rather than on an arbitrary means test that is designed to give grant that is based purely on income.

A key aim of the scheme of assistance is to widen the range of financial and non-financial assistance for owners so that we can help more people meet their responsibilities as owners than we do through the existing grant scheme. Grant remains a part of the new scheme, but only where an owner cannot do important works without it. A locally developed approach to the assessment of an individual's contribution to the cost of repairs and improvements is important, as it gives councils the flexibility to take account of specific issues, such as the circumstances of tenement owners or crofters.

In summary, the main purpose of the regulations is to produce a simpler, fairer and more consistent system of financial assistance with the cost of adaptations. That approach is affordable within existing resources. The regulations have been welcomed by disability organisations and local authorities alike. Maximising the opportunity to live independently at home is of the greatest importance to disabled people and the organisations that work with them. The regulations signal the Scottish Government's commitment to making that a reality.

I very much welcome the changes that are proposed under the 2006 act. The minister is absolutely right that the regulations will help those who are in need of adaptations. However, paragraph 14 of the Executive note that was circulated to members states:

"it is expected that the financial implications for local authorities should be manageable within existing resources."

How realistic is that?

It is realistic. Local authorities have in general welcomed the changes. Most local authorities have accepted that there will be few or no financial implications for them. A small minority of local authorities had concerns but, after further discussion with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the authorities in question, misunderstandings about the regulations were cleared up. There is no doubt that a small number of authorities may have to consider increasing the amount that they spend in the area. It is not wrong that they do so and it is manageable. Local authorities will shift their priorities away from grant for additional works and repairs towards loans and other funding methods, and they will transfer the resources to adaptations. In that scenario, the measures are manageable within existing resources.

I asked the question because I am sure that I am not the only MSP who has had constituents approach them about adaptations issues. In the end, some people decide to pay for adaptations themselves, rather than go through the means-testing process and all that that involves. In many cases, their families pay. I hope that such people will now be better able to access grant, but I wonder what impact that will have.

The change from 50 per cent minimum grant to 80 per cent will be of great assistance to people who require adaptations. The abolition of the test of resources will mean that local authorities will allocate grant on the basis of need: whether people need help and what help they need. Beyond that, for repairs, people will consider what resources they can bring in. However, for adaptations, the 80 per cent minimum grant will be very welcome. Even though the current minimum grant is 50 per cent, research indicates that many local authorities currently provide grant on average at about 80 to 85 per cent. That suggests that the change in policy will not have a financial impact on local authorities. Many disabled people will, of course, get a 100 per cent grant. Indeed, that will be the norm in many cases.

I hope that the regulations will lead to more people feeling able to approach their local authorities for assistance, but are you concerned about the ability of local authorities to deal with that demand?

Many such policies are demand led to a great extent, but I do not expect a sudden surge in demand. There is no expectation that there will be a sudden increase in the number of people who come forward. Many structures that are currently in place identify people with difficulties. Adaptations are intended to help people maintain their independent living, and people come to the attention of the social services, health authorities and others when there is a problem. We have pretty much identified those who require help, and I do not foresee a big change in demand between now and when the regulations are in place.

I will follow on from Mary Mulligan's line of questioning.

I know how local authorities distribute their grants and have dealt with a couple of cases in which the local authority set an insufficient grant level to do the required work in the person's house. In one case, a bedridden disabled person needed a wet room installed, but the council set a grant that did not allow the bathroom to be converted to a fully-tiled wet room. Around a third of it was left untiled and the people were basically told that if they wanted the work to be completed, they would have to finish it, as the grant had been set by the council's assessment officer.

I am concerned about who will set the grant levels. Who will have the discretion to set the applicable amounts? Will an appeals process be built into the system? Currently, if anybody objects to a grant that is paid, they can speak only to the local authority grants officer, who will usually say, "Well, that's the grant you're getting. We're not going to give you any more."

I am also concerned about whether the Government has set aside additional funding to cover the demand for the work that will require to be carried out. I am not sure whether all 32 local authorities have flexibility in their budgets to accommodate a possible surge in the uptake of grants.

For the reasons that I outlined in answer to the previous question, I do not expect a sudden surge in the uptake of grants. The majority of local authorities responded to the consultation and said that they were content with the proposals and that they did not expect them to have additional budgetary implications. They did not identify the possible problem that you have outlined; rather, they expected to contain the grants, and the costs of other actions that they will take, within their existing budgets.

People with identified needs have their needs assessed, and the grant for the adaptation that they require is assessed. That is a matter for individual local authorities and officers; they must decide how much money is required in each case. I am sure that members accept that we cannot have a blank cheque for individual adaptations. The cost of changes must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and local authorities and local officers do that. Obviously, I do not know about the case that John Wilson mentioned, but it is not for me to intervene in individual cases and determine, for example, the cost of or a grant for the number of tiles that are required for an individual bathroom. That is a matter for local authorities and, in the main, the process works well.

The regulations represent a change for the better. All disability groups have welcomed the change from a minimum grant of 50 per cent to a minimum grant of 80 per cent. As I said, local authorities have the discretion to go beyond the 80 per cent grant. Many people will receive grants of more than 80 per cent because of their incomes; indeed, many will receive 100 per cent grants. The changes are a good-news story for disabled people and those who wish to carry on living independently. Obviously, there will be minor difficulties in some cases, but they will be for the local authorities to resolve. The proposed change provides authorities with a great deal of flexibility in how they progress such cases.

I welcome the minister's response. You said that the minimum grant level will change from 50 to 80 per cent. My fear is that because local authorities have a set annual budget and receive numerous applications for grant, they might decide to reduce the level of grant available for each adaptation that is carried out. I refer to my earlier example of creating a wet room: the money to carry out such an adaptation might be reduced in line with the level of grant that is set.

How will we monitor the level of grant that is made to each individual who applies to the council? It is fine to say that people can apply for a grant, but if the grant is not set against the cost of doing the work, a substandard adaptation might be carried out. I am not saying that adaptations are substandard but, as in the example that I gave, the level of adaptation might be cut so that it does not meet the full requirements of the individual. If the minimum grant level is increasing from 50 to 80 per cent, I am not entirely clear from where the extra 30 per cent will be made up, unless the minister is saying that local authorities have identified that they have sufficient resources to change the grant level.

The key point, as I mentioned earlier, is that we know from the consultation responses that we have had and the research that was done that local authorities are, in the main, providing grants of on average 80 to 85 per cent of the cost of the adaptation. The change that is being made reflects what local authorities already do. There is no sudden surge in grant levels from 50 to 80 per cent in the way that you suggested; we are reflecting the reality on the ground. It is true that for many families we are making it much simpler and providing a much higher level of grant, but we are reflecting what local authorities do on the ground, within the existing budget.

We are bringing in regulations in line with practice and dealing with what disabled groups widely regard as the anomaly of a restrictive list of what mandatory grant can be used for. For example, I mentioned in my opening remarks that adapting access to a property does not qualify for mandatory grant, but that it will in future. Such things should be included on the list of what qualifies for mandatory grant so that disabled people can continue to live independently. Much of the work has already been done by local authorities. In their responses to the consultation, they had no issue with the regulations and felt that the changes could be contained in their existing budgets.

The Executive note makes it clear that

"The key policy aim of the regulations is for the first time to put assistance with disability adaptations on a separate footing from assistance with the owner's responsibility for the condition of the property."

You mentioned crofting in your remarks and, predictably, I ask you to elaborate. This might not be confined to crafting; some people have unusual forms of tenure on their houses that make it difficult to borrow against them.

You are right that the situation concerns more than just crofting. Local authorities retain the discretion to provide grant; that has not been removed. Tenant crofters, for example, will be unable to access other forms of equity, so I imagine that grant would be the norm in such cases. However, for owners of crofts or decrofted houses, there may be a case for equity release and other aspects to be taken into account for any changes. I do not mean adaptations, but the kind of repair work that we have talked about.

The point remains, though, that local authorities will still have the power to provide grant in individual circumstances. For example, in areas where there are particular difficulties and local circumstances, such as those involving crofting in Alasdair Allan's constituency, local authorities will retain the power to provide grant. They will be allowed to do that, and no regulations will be imposed that remove the right to provide grant in those circumstances.

On a related issue, did you consider in your discussions the issue of rising building costs and where that fits into the picture? Do you have any observations on that issue as it reflects on both repairs and adaptations?

Not particularly. The regulations are for the long term and are, I believe, a change for the better. One of the underlying problems for grant levels, particularly for repairs, is that, as research has made clear, there is in the region of £5 billion of disrepair in the private housing sector. There is no way we can solve those problems through grants. As other members' questions indicated, there is a continual demand and a waiting list for people to make the required changes.

The regulations will focus attention and support where it is required and have the maximum impact for people who are disabled. However, the regulations will help us, too, by making the money go further because people with sufficient income or equity can use or release that to fund changes and improvements to their property. That situation should be taken into account, and there should be a method to ensure that we do not just continually feed public grant into properties where enough resource can be released to improve them. The grant money would therefore be available for people who could not afford to make improvements, particularly adaptations.

The move away from grants towards individual responsibility will make the situation better because it will release funds in the future. Obviously, money will come back into the system through loans, which will further improve matters and mean that more people will be able to access grant, as opposed to a situation of a decreasing level of returns through fewer people being able to access the system because of increased costs.

To put what is proposed into perspective, can you indicate how many grant applications local authorities have approved under the existing scheme in the past few years?

If you do not mind, I will hand that over to my officials, who have the details.

The total cost of all grants in 2007-08, including repair and adaptation grants, was £58 million. Just over £20 million of that was for adaptations, which amounted to about 5,500 grants.

Right. I am trying to do the arithmetic.

I did not catch that. What was the total cost?

Do you mean for adaptations or for the total, including repairs?

I think you mentioned the total.

The total given out in grants, including for repairs and adaptations, is about £58 million.

That is fine. Excuse me for interrupting.

That is for 2007-08.

But the grants that we are talking about with regard to the regulations are a subset of that.

That is right. For the adaptations, we are talking about £20 million.

And that effectively financed 5,500 grant applications.

That is right.

Given that the cost to the public purse from the changes in the regulations is expected to remain at around £20 million, do you expect the number of adaptations to increase, decrease or remain the same?

I would certainly not expect it to decrease. We will have to wait and see—and we will review the matter once the regulations are in place—but there are two likely outcomes. Either individual adaptation cases will continue at the same rate, or more could be done, for the reasons that I gave Alasdair Allan. If local authorities use loans more often for repairs and improvements, there will be more money to use for adaptations because there is no financial barrier between the two parts of the mechanism; local authorities can balance how much they spend on one or the other. Therefore, I expect the number of adaptations to stay roughly the same at first, but perhaps increase in future because local authorities will be able to focus slightly more grant on adaptations for disabled people.

Do you have an indication of the current waiting time between application, assessment of the applicant's need and implementation of the works that are approved and authorised? Is there some handle on how long it takes for somebody's adaptations to be done?

It will vary case by case because the assessment that takes place at the beginning of the process determines the case's level of priority. People in the priority 1 group are likely to get their adaptations sooner than those in lower priority groups. The assessment is based on need and is carried out by professionals on the ground. Therefore, it is difficult to give you an exact figure.

Increasing the number of mandatory adaptations and taking out the means test should speed up the process because it means that less administrative work will need to be done in advance of the decision. Although that should speed up applications, the overall time would continue to vary case by case and local authorities would still have to make a decision based on need and on the resources that were available for the year to determine how quickly people could get adaptations done.

The fundamental point is to ensure that people who need adaptations now get them as quickly as possible. People who are in lower priority categories and may need adaptations at a later date to maintain independent living would get them as soon as possible. There is a system of prioritisation and it is rightly based on need.

Is the system national, and does it ensure that priority 1 is the same in Edinburgh as it is in Glasgow?

It is for local authorities to carry out the assessment but, roughly speaking, it is the same. The prioritisation is based on need and on whether the applicant requires adaptations to stay in their home and remain independent rather than depend on other assistance or move into supported accommodation. Roughly the same process is gone through to identify need, but individual local authorities can vary it. It also depends on how much resource a local authority applies to that part of the overall support that they provide.

Are you saying that different local authorities would prioritise a particular disability differently as priority 1, 2 or 3? That does not seem reasonable to me.

The basic point is that it is roughly the same. Local authorities do the local assessment on the ground.

The whole grants system that the regulations will introduce is, in many ways, about reducing elements of discretion and making things that are discretionary mandatory. As I understand the answers that have been given, the length of time taken to implement a programme of works will depend on what priority the person has been given, which will differ according to levels of need. Surely it is sensible that people with a particular need or disability should expect the same categorisation and prioritisation whether they live in Glasgow or Edinburgh. One would not expect the categorisation that is given to a particular form of disability to be different in Glasgow from that which applies elsewhere in the country. Surely there must be some kind of national guidelines or rules that set out what the priorities should be.

Under community care legislation, social work departments use community care assessments to identify needs. That operates across the country. However, authorities must have local flexibility for the volume of cases that they have and how quickly they can deal with those. Authorities can prioritise people as priority group 1 or priority group 2 but, in effect, their highest priority group will be the ones that they will fund first.

I understand that, but what I am trying to get to the bottom of is the timescales involved. The response to my first question on how long people will wait was, quite rightly, that that depends on the applicant's priority category. That is fine, and I understand that. However, are the different priority categories constant—that is, assessed the same way—across the country? Having established that the priority categories are standardised across the country by reference to levels of disability and need, I had hoped then to ask how long people might expect to wait if they are a priority 1 case or a priority 2 case. Those seem reasonable questions.

I do not dispute the reasonableness of the questions. The difficulty is that individual cases are just that—they are individual cases—so it would be difficult to give a timescale for everyone who is in a particular category. The variation in any category would be such that local assessment would still be required. Community care assessment must identify the impact of the disability, the likelihood that the individual will require the adaptation either now or at some point in future and whether the individual will need supported care or other support in addition to the adaptations.

My point is that it would be difficult to say, categorically throughout the country, that individuals with a particular disability should be in a particular category without local variation. Individuals might have exactly the same disability, but there might be other impacts from factors such as age, current housing situation or family circumstances. Given the range of other factors that might need to be taken into account, it would be difficult to put in place a system in which it is written down formally exactly how each disability or age band should be categorised. That is why such things need to be progressed through local assessment.

I would expect that roughly the same assessment and categorisation would take place across the country. However, there will be a clear variation in need between, for example, an elderly, unsupported person in a wheelchair who lives in a house with stairs in one part of the country and a younger person living in a bungalow with family support who has easy access in and out of the property.

I am grateful for that clarification.

Let me just wrap up this line of questioning. Is the waiting time from application to implementation expected to remain the same or to improve as a result of the changes that have been announced?

Certainly, my hope is that things will speed up because of the reduction in bureaucracy. That will not happen immediately, but in the future there should be, for ordinary repairs to properties, a shift in emphasis away from grants and towards loans and other methods of support. That should release funds for investment in other parts of the system, which should speed things up.

Will the Scottish Government be able to monitor whether such improvements have in fact occurred?

We will do research post the implementation of the regulations.

I seek clarity on an issue that follows on from that questioning. You mentioned the demands on local authorities that arise from establishing priorities and the volume of applications. Are you confident that the different criteria that are applied in assessing need and disability in different local authorities are not used to manage demand and volume, rather than to meet the needs of disabled people? Have officials done any work on that?

The regulations will not change the assessment of need—that will remain as it is now. However, my expectation is that the assessment should be based exactly on the needs of individual clients and not on the authority's budget or on any other reason to do with the administration or management of the system. The system that we have in place for supporting people in their homes involves more than just the regulations, as social work departments and community care legislation are also involved. That probably works against the premise that the assessment process could be used as a tool for managing lists.

I suspect that the premise of your question is that authorities might be excluding people who should be included in the list. In the assessments that are carried out under the policy, and under the duty of care and the statutory obligations in community care legislation, local authorities are responsible for identifying need and providing support to meet it. Because of that, I suspect that that premise is not correct.

To all intents and purposes, the policy is a good-news story. However, I just wonder whether the Parliament's and the Government's reputation is being put at risk, because we may be exciting expectation when, at the point of delivery, the regulations may not achieve the desired outcome or meet the expectations of people on waiting lists. I asked whether, as part of the process, work was carried out to establish whether the criteria are being used to manage waiting lists. I presume that no work has been done and that the opportunity has not been taken to confirm whether that occurs.

We considered many of the circumstances surrounding the current system before we introduced the regulations. The regulations and the legislation are clear on local authorities' responsibilities and their duty of care: not only must they identify on the basis of need, they must meet that need in a reasonable time. I certainly do not expect authorities or individual officers to attempt to use the categorisation of people as a tool to manage waiting lists. As I said, we are not changing the current assessment process in the new system. The assessment of need will remain as it is at present.

One important step that we are taking is to ensure that, in future, the assessment of need is the basis on which the mandatory grants are provided. As you said, this is a good news story. Given the legislation, regulations and statutory guidance that are in place, I would not expect the categorisation of people to be used as a tool to manage waiting lists.

Mr Blair said that £20 million had been spent on disabled adaptations. I make that an average of £3,636 per adaptation carried out. That leaves £38 million that has been spent on repairs. It would be useful to find out how many repairs were carried out with that money. I also draw your attention to paragraph 15 of the Executive note, which refers to the £20 million being continued in 2008-09 but also refers to a total of £67 million. There seems to be an increase of £9 million for repairs but no similar uprating for disabled adaptations.

Further, will you expand on the proposed national lending unit that the Executive note also mentions? Could you clarify its role and say who will be involved in it and what money they will be lending?

The £67.3 million that is mentioned in paragraph 15 is the overall budget. Money within that sum will be used for other things, such as the private rented sector and some other allocations. The figure that David Blair provided was the total figure for adaptations and repairs, which is contained within the overall budget of £67.3 million. It is not that there has been a large increase in the budget, all of which will go to repairs and none of which will go to adaptations; the money is used for other activities within the private sector housing grants. I hope that that clarifies that point.

We consulted on the option of setting up a national lending unit to make special loan products available to people who are unable to access commercial loans. The principle of that was generally warmly welcomed in the consultation. We have not yet made any final decisions on it; we are exploring ways of doing it prior to coming to a final conclusion. The issue is to ensure that our proposal is robust and that it will allow people to access support in a way that is sustainable for them and supportable centrally and locally. We have not come to any final decisions on the national lending unit, but it was an option that was warmly welcomed in the consultation.

I never got an answer to my question about how many repairs were carried out under the £38 million budget.

I am sorry, but we do not have that figure at the moment.

I am sure that you will be able to provide it, minister.

Yes.

The regulations seem to improve the situation for those who are applying for adaptations and to give local authorities a bit more leeway in how they deal with that.

The minister might remember that I wrote to him about a constituent whose mother had an adaptation done to her house but then had to move into residential accommodation. Because she moved within a certain time, she was asked to pay back the cost of the adaptation. The local authority said that the only way that it could waive that cost was by writing to you for permission. Does the Scottish Government have any intention of allowing local authorities to deal with such cases, where someone moves into residential accommodation or dies?

I remember the case that you wrote to me about. My understanding is that that is much less likely to arise in future because there will be much more local flexibility and local authorities will be able to take decisions by themselves.

I am struggling to find the exact section of the 2006 act where it says that if a local authority chooses to give a grant in future, it will have the power to apply conditions. It would be for the local authority to decide whether to apply a condition that, for example, the grant would be repayable if the person moved within a certain period. That would be a matter for local discretion.

The point is that we will not impose the application of such conditions on them; they will have the right not to apply such a grant condition.

The concern was that local authorities would have to go through what seemed like a bureaucratic process. I just think that it would be more sensible—

That should not be the case in future because local authorities will have local discretion.

There being no further questions, I thank the minister and his officials for their help and participation.

Item 2 is the debate on the regulations, which will last no more than 90 minutes. I remind officials that they cannot contribute to the debate.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government and Communities Committee recommends that the draft Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 (Scheme of Assistance) Regulations 2008 (SSI 2008/draft) be approved.—[Stewart Maxwell.]

You have the opportunity to speak to the motion, minister, although I presume that—

I will pass on that opportunity.

Thank you. It appears that no member wishes to debate the motion. I invite the minister to wind up.

Thank you, convener, but I think that I covered all the issues previously.

Motion agreed to.

Thank you for your attendance and evidence this morning, minister.

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Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations 2008 (SSI 2008/324)

Item 3 is to consider a negative instrument. Members have received copies of the regulations and no concerns have been raised. No motion to annul has been lodged. I invite members to consider the regulations.

I do not object to the Scottish statutory instrument on the procedure for notification when people might be rendered homeless as a result of repossession actions by landlords or creditors. However, I am interested to know what mandatory action is required on the part of a local authority that receives such a notice. Is the notice just neatly filed in the housing department, or does another set of regulations require the local authority, on receipt of such a notice, to contact the landlord, tenant, lender or borrower and provide advice, for example? What happens thereafter?

We can write, but I remind members of our recent discussion in which we said that if members have questions about SSIs, with a bit of notice, we can have officials along to answer them. I ask members to bear that in mind. If members are content to agree that they have no recommendations to make on the regulations, we can write to officials and get some answers to David McLetchie's question. The alternative would be to invite officials to attend a further meeting so that we can ask them personally.

If you wanted to do that, convener, it would have to happen next week. However, we can seek an answer to the question in writing.

As I have said, I have no objection to the principle of notifying councils in that situation. However, it would be useful to know what happens thereafter and in particular whether there is any mandatory requirement on local authorities to take a certain course of action.

Are members content for me to write to officials, seeking answers to those questions?

Members indicated agreement.

In that case, are members agreed that we have no recommendation to make to Parliament on the regulations?

Members indicated agreement.