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Draft Instruments Subject <br />to Approval
Advice and Assistance <br />(Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (draft)
No points arise on the regulations.
Charity Test (Specified Bodies) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
Members should note that the order will have no effect until the charity test and section 7(4) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 are commenced. The obvious thing to do is to ask the Executive when it intends that section 7 of the 2005 act will be commenced in full.
There is also the question whether there is to be any consultation about the order. I think that we should pursue that.
The Executive note states that there has been some limited consultation with specified departments, if I remember correctly.
There was certainly some consultation with the Executive, and the matter was widely debated during stage 1 consideration of the bill, but there was no formal consultation. I suppose that there is always the chance that there are bodies that wish to be included but have not been included, and a formal consultation exercise would have made that less likely.
I think that we should ask why consultation has not taken place. Is that agreed?
Civil Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (draft)<br />Community Justice Authorities (Establishment, Constitution and Proceedings) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No points arise on the instruments.
Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992 Modification Order 2006 (draft)
Issues similar to those arising on the draft Charity Test (Specified Bodies) (Scotland) Order 2006 also arise on this order, particularly with regard to consultation. The first issue that arises is when it is intended that section 7 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 is to be commenced. However, consultation is particularly important, and the clerk has received notes of interest about the order. Although it may be a policy issue rather than one of subordinate legislation, such notes may indicate that wider consultation was needed. Do members agree that we should ask about consultation in the light of that?
Particularly given the fact that we have had correspondence about it.
Absolutely.
Non-Domestic Rating <br />(Electronic Communications) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No substantive points arise on the order, although members will note from our legal brief that the preamble to the order is lengthy and not in the normal bullet-point or list format, which may be a point of interest for us. I gather that another procedure is being used elsewhere, down south, to get over some of those problems, but perhaps we should raise that informally with the Executive. Is that okay with members?
Given that we briefly considered a letter that stressed the importance that the Executive attaches to its documentation not being intimidating, perhaps we should suggest that the bullet-point approach might be less intimidating.
It was also suggested that some of the punctuation makes getting through the preamble even more complicated.
O tempora! O mores!
Protection of Charities Assets (Exemption) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No points arise on the order. However, members will note that, again, there is no statutory requirement to consult on the order and that the Executive has not done so. I wonder whether members would like to raise the same question about consultation in relation to this order as we agreed to raise with regard to earlier instruments.
There is an issue with consultation and external consultation. We tend to assume that consultation means external consultation, but it may be that the Executive will want to find another term for internal consultation.
I am conscious that we should not consult unnecessarily. People complain about being overly consulted, but there is a formal process that you need to go through to alert people who may be affected or who would wish to be included. We need to give them a formal opportunity to make their views known. It is slightly worrying that that has not been built in.
There will undoubtedly be circumstances in which the Executive will decide, for sustainable reasons, not to consult on a proposal. I intended to make that point earlier. In such circumstances, it should explain its decision, so that we are clear about what level of consultation is appropriate. That would allow us to dispute the decision, if we disagreed with it. At least it would then be clear that the Executive had considered the matter.
That may be one of the feedback points that we received in our review. There is no difficulty in our making the point.
Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No substantive points arise on the order, but there are a few minor points.
I thought that the next instrument to be considered was the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to Scottish Ministers) (No 2) Order 2006 (draft). Do you have a document that we do not have?
It may be the result of my returning to the original brief. Has the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft) been taken out?
We are working from the partial legal brief.
I think that, for once, I am right. The next instrument for consideration is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft).
It is not included in the legal brief.
Members will be pleased to know that no substantive points arise on the order.
That is reassuring.
There are a few minor points that I suggest we raise informally with the Executive.
Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc) (No 2) Order 2006 (draft)<br />Valuation and Rating (Exempted Classes) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No points arise on the orders.
Water Environment (Consequential and Savings Provisions) (Scotland) Order 2006 (draft)
No substantive points arise on the order, but there are minor issues that we may raise informally with the Executive. Is that agreed?
We will double-check to ensure that members have all relevant information.
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Executive Responses