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Scottish Network 1 Tourist Board Scheme Order 2004 (SSI 2004/396)<br />Scottish Network 2 Tourist Board Scheme Order 2004 (SSI 2004/397)
Item 4 is subordinate legislation. Once again we are joined by officials from the Scottish Executive. I welcome Lesley Fraser, from the Scottish Executive's tourism unit, and Kathleen Preston. Are you from the same unit?
No, I am from the solicitor's office.
Jim Logie is not coming—is that right?
That is right. Kathleen Preston is in Jim Logie's team.
We have two orders to consider this afternoon: the Scottish Network 1 Tourist Board Scheme Order 2004 and the Scottish Network 2 Tourist Board Scheme Order 2004. Would you like to say a word or two about the orders, after which we will ask you some questions?
Yes, thank you.
Christine May is asking what is wrong with the order. I think that four local authorities have been wrongly named in it. For example, Western Isles Council appears as "the Western Isles" instead of the Gaelic version.
Oh, I see.
It names "Dumbarton and Clydebank" instead of West Dunbartonshire Council. It uses the old names.
Exactly. Some of them date back a considerable time.
The names have been transposed from the old orders. When the Subordinate Legislation Committee considered the orders on technical grounds, it had no comment to make; it was quite satisfied and managed to miss the mistake as well.
It is a complicated process to merge 14 area tourist boards with the national tourism organisation, VisitScotland. After the ministerial announcement in March, teams were set up under the auspices of VisitScotland and they have been working over the summer. There are nine project teams, involving VisitScotland staff, area tourist boards, members of the industry and representatives of local government. All are considering the various aspects that will result in a fully functioning, integrated network from April. I am pleased to report that that work is being carried out to schedule and that we expect that the network will be up and running from 1 April 2005.
It is some weeks since I had discussions with my local area tourist board. I assume that, if I go back to it and it tells me that that is not the case, it is wrong.
Yes. The local authorities and the area tourist boards have been working closely with us. A great deal more information about the detail of the new network will be forthcoming. That information is planned to be released at the end of October or the beginning of November. The work is progressing well, and there have been some productive discussions with colleagues throughout the tourism industry on the different aspects.
I welcome that because there was concern a couple of months ago that things would not be ready.
That is right. I talked about the matter last week with Philip Riddle, the chief executive of VisitScotland. He explained the process of redesignating jobs and how jobs will be filled and so on. I will not go into the detail of that, but I was concerned about there being no estimate yet of the transitional costs for the staff and other organisational changes that will result from the reorganisation. There is no budget line for the costs. Given past problems with transitional changes in the tourism structure, the committee needs to keep a close eye on the situation. I suggest that, when we discuss the budget in November, we should expect the Executive to be able to present an estimate of the transitional costs. We will certainly ask about both the transitional arrangements and their costs.
It is as well to remind the committee that the minister assured us that the transitional costs would not be met from existing tourism budgets. I am sure that that is on the record. We will probably want to confirm that that remains the case and find out where the costs will come from.
That is right. We will also want to know what the costs will be. They may be minimal, but nobody knows. It is fair for us to expect an answer to a question on that at budget time in November.
On that point, I am checking our work programme and it seems that the minister is due to come before the committee again in November. Can we not just combine the two matters, so that we not only get a general report on progress, but deal with the specific issue of costs?
It will be the new minister.
Yes, but I still think that it would be appropriate for the new minister to attend. It will not be until the middle of November, so there will be time for—
To get their feet under the table.
The two instruments will transfer local tourist boards' property and assets. Presumably, local authorities and boards own such property equally. If that is the case, have you had any representations about the loss of local authority property to a central network?
Yes. Over the summer, the Executive and members of the network project team went out and met every local authority to discuss in more detail the authorities' concerns. The property issue was raised with us at those meetings. The minister assured local authorities in writing that, if they have built up assets in their area tourist board's local area, those assets will be ring fenced for use by that area in the new network. That will apply in particular to the area tourist board for Loch Lomond, the Trossachs and Stirling, for example, which has invested a great deal in building up tourist information centres.
Is it your understanding that the meetings have reassured all local authorities?
Yes. The most recent letter from the minister went out within the past couple of weeks and we have not had any feedback from that. So far, we are reassured that the minister's message has got across.
If there was any feedback, would that come before the November meeting as well?
Yes.
I have a couple of further points. I am not sure whether my first will occasion dismay to Miss Fraser and Miss Preston. You mentioned earlier the amendment in relation to local authorities and the board's constitution, but I fear that you will have to make another amendment. In both orders, paragraph 11 in part IV, on transitional provisions, refers to
Thank you for drawing that to our attention. I think it might have been a Freudian slip.
The legal adviser to the Subordinate Legislation Committee will be taken to task.
That proves that members of this committee read their papers.
No doubt the schemes are going to be wound up and dissolved because they are exciting. The new ones will probably be dull.
My understanding is that it is not exactly those provisions, but they are analogous, so the staff will have the same protection. Kathleen Preston will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that although Scottish ministers are not bound by TUPE, they undertake to provide the same protection.
On that point, one of the things that has come up before is the fact that a large number, if not most, of the staff who are employed by the existing boards work on a six-monthly contract from April to September, so the chances are that they might not be employed on 31 March despite the fact that they might have been working in the same tourist information centre for the past 20 years. Is there any protection for them? I have asked the minister about that before and he said that there would be, but I do not see that it is necessarily granted by the orders.
I would need to come back to you on that specific point. My understanding is that it is intended that seasonal tourist information centres will operate next season as they have operated this season and that those staff will be required, so they would be protected and would find employment there. Perhaps we can come back to you on that just for clarification.
I think that I am right in saying that 70 per cent of the staff who are transferring work in the TICs.
Yes, a large number of them do. The number coming over from area tourist boards is about 900, whereas there are 200 in VisitScotland, so the area tourist boards are very much the larger partner in this merger.
My other point is about the formation of the new boards. The orders state:
There are seven members.
There will be 18 places to be filled with the two new boards.
Yes, there will be up to nine members on each board.
Does that mean that all members of the VisitScotland board will be on one or other of the two boards?
Yes.
The subsequent places will be filled by other people who have been appointed by ministers.
If that is required, yes.
There will not necessarily be nine members on each.
Yes. We have considered various options for the boards of the network tourist board, but the overriding policy reason for considering the VisitScotland board is that we want to create an integrated network, and having the same members on the boards of the network tourist boards as are on the board of VisitScotland is one way of achieving that. The board of VisitScotland also represents the plurality of interests that is envisaged in the area tourist board legislation. There are representatives with strong local government and industry experience, so there is a good mix. We intend that they should be the board members of the new network tourist boards.
Is it your intention that the members of VisitScotland's board should be on both of the new boards? Will any one person be on both boards?
Yes.
Will they all be on both boards?
We envisage that the board of VisitScotland will be on the board of each of the network tourist boards.
There is also an issue around local authority representation on the main board. I believe that the chairman is setting up a chairman's committee of the main board to try to ensure local authority representation. Any change would apparently require primary legislation.
Yes, it would. The Development of Tourism Act 1969 constrains the number on the VisitScotland board to seven, so there is no room to increase it beyond its current size. That is something that we would like to consider as soon as primary legislation can be introduced. In the meantime, there are two proposals to engage local authorities better in the new network. The first is to set up a chairman's committee to advise the board, which would probably have three or four local authority representatives on it. Proposals are also being discussed with COSLA to set up a national convention, so that all local authorities would meet the board of VisitScotland once a year to discuss the key tourism issues that affect them.
I am pleased that we have come to that, because something that is not in the instrument is how local stakeholders—that is a horrible word—who currently have an interest will continue to be represented. I am quite concerned that that is not in the legislation. I welcome the setting up of a chairman's committee, but it will have relatively few folk on it. Something that brings all local authorities together is welcome as a national advisory body, but it is not particularly good for keeping the local economic link, which is what has worried people. If we are going to respond to the minister, we might flag that up as a continuing concern.
That is one of my concerns. I do not think that that has yet been agreed, because nobody is sure exactly what the costs will be or what movement of staff will take place. We shall have the minister before us on 30 November—St Andrew's day, appropriately enough—and we can ask about it then. If the Scottish Executive officials can follow up on those issues and update us, that would be helpful, but we will have an opportunity to pursue those questions in more detail with the minister.
That would be welcome.
I do not want to have a wider discussion, because we are really supposed to be discussing only what is of direct relevance to the statutory instruments. Are all members now satisfied with the instruments?
This is in no way a reflection on the two ladies who are with us today, but I get the feeling that there is a bit of carelessness in the Executive when it comes to statutory instruments. This is the second lot that we have had in two weeks on which we have had to note amendments as a result of mistakes made. Much more attention needs to be paid to details. It wastes Executive officials' time and our time if we have to go over statutory instruments because of mistakes in the original versions. We would accept that happening now and again, but it is becoming quite regular. I have no doubt that the Subordinate Legislation Committee will be addressing the matter, but I know that other committees are also concerned about it. I make that observation.
We have learned lessons from the process and will see what we can do to ensure that it does not happen again.
When the instruments came before the Subordinate Legislation Committee, was the issue of the incorrect names of the local authorities identified, or did the Subordinate Legislation Committee fail to pick that up?
There were no comments from the Subordinate Legislation Committee.
I believe that the error was identified by our clerks, which is a reflection of the quality of our clerking team.
We shall do so.
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