Community Care (Assessment of Needs) (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (draft)
We asked the Executive four questions on the regulations. The first question was about the fact that the title does not show that the regulations are transitional. The Executive accepts that it might have been helpful for the title to show that. The second question raised the point that what appears to be a substantive provision in relation to a "relevant person" is dealt with only as a definition provision. The Executive disagrees with us because it does not consider the definition of "relevant person" to be a substantive provision. The third question concerned the fact that the regulations' definition of "the 1968 Act" was redundant, which the Executive accepts.
Community Care (Personal Care and Nursing Care) (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (draft)
Again, there was a redundant definition. The Executive has accepted that point, to a degree. We can perhaps point that out to the lead committee.
Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Amendment (Scotland) Order (draft)
We made a substantial number of points on the order. I do not think that we need to go through the Executive's responses in detail because the Executive has laid an instrument that overtakes the original order. We will deal with that instrument later in the meeting. The Executive accepts that we correctly identified structural difficulties in the order and has tried to remedy those in the subsequent order.
Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 (Consequential Amendment) Order 2002 (SSI 2002/233)
There are legal reservations about the order. Would anyone like to deal with those?
We identified what we thought was an unusual or unexpected use of the powers. We do not doubt the good intentions behind that use, but we believe that it sets what may be a dangerous precedent. In its response, the Executive does not accept what we said and does not give us comfort that a precedent is not being set. We must draw the matter to the attention of the lead committee and Parliament.
Yes. We were concerned about subordinate legislation being used to reflect back, if not amend, the parent act to which it is supposed to be subordinate. The concern is that, if regulations are made in a particular way, ideas and principles in the parent act could be amended. That might not be particularly significant in this case, but the practice is not quite proper in principle. We should draw that to the attention of the lead committee and Parliament.
Meat (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) (Scotland) Regulations 2002<br />(SSI 2002/234)
We suggested that it was unsatisfactory for the acronym "TVC" in the regulations to mean both "total viable counts" and "total colony count". It is clear that that does not affect the operation of the regulations, as both phrases refer to the same thing. However, it is not good practice for a single acronym to be used when there are two different interpretations or applications of that acronym. That point was raised by the Legislation Committee of the National Assembly for Wales when it scrutinised similar regulations. We confirm that we do not think that using an acronym in such a way is good practice.
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Draft Codes