Subordinate Legislation
Adoption Support Services and Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2009 (SSI 2009/152)<br />Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 2009 (SSI 2009/154)
Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 (Supervision Requirement Reports in Applications for Permanence Orders) Regulations 2009 (SSI 2009/169)<br />Applications to the Court of Session to Annul Convention Adoptions or Overseas Adoptions (Scotland) Regulations 2009 (SSI 2009/170)
The second item on the agenda today is consideration of four negative Scottish statutory instruments, all relating to the implementation of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007. These are the first in a series of SSIs relating to the act that will come before the committee over the coming months. Members will recall that we have received correspondence from the minister outlining all the SSIs that the committee can expect and giving some background information. Members have also been given a copy of a briefing from the Scottish Parliament information centre.
I invite members to comment on any of the regulations.
I am concerned about the Adoption Support Services and Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2009. It is suggested that the regulations will have no financial impact on local authorities, and I was slightly concerned to read that. When the 2007 act went through, there was a belief that it would considerably expand services to people who could not previously access them. Those services should already exist, but they do not.
It is potentially disingenuous to think that there will be no impact. If services are restated and recalibrated, and if there is an unmet need, the point must be to provide services to people who have not previously been accessing them. Clearly, there will be a demand on local authorities' resources. I am worried that there has been no recognition of that.
I am not quite sure how to address the issue, but perhaps we should contact local authorities, draw the matter to their attention and ask for their views. Perhaps we should contact some of the adoption and fostering agencies and ask for their views, too. That might be easier than writing to all 32 authorities. We could find out whether fostering and adoption agencies think that the situation has been reflected accurately.
The difficulty with that proposal is that the committee has only until next week to report on the regulations. Time just does not allow us to do as you propose if we are to comply with parliamentary procedures.
Can we put the regulations on next week's agenda and decide on them then? In the interim, we could ask the minister to respond to that point.
Unfortunately not, because we have to report to the Parliament by 25 May. There were no motions to annul, which would have allowed us to do as has been suggested. I am afraid that the timescale is pretty tight.
I will suggest an alternative. I am not against the regulations, which I think have to go ahead. Our papers say:
"Paragraph 7 of the Executive Note states that the instrument should have no financial effect as the regulations largely restate the existing provisions."
I am not sure that that is the case. They might restate them, but the regulations are built on the expectation that demand will expand.
I do not think that we should hold up the regulations but, in parallel to our dealing with them, we should write about the matter. A series of instruments will be going through, right up until September. We should take this opportunity to write to local authorities, if we have time, and to key organisations such as the British Association for Adoption and Fostering—BAAF—and other fostering and adoption agencies, which could give us their experienced opinions on the matter.
I have a suggestion. Before we do that or decide whether that might be appropriate, it might be best simply to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and ask her for her views on the matter. Depending on her response, we can determine whether or not we feel it appropriate to write to local authorities and adoption and fostering agencies.
That might address your concerns, Mr Macintosh, while not holding things up. I do not think that there is any will in the committee to hold up our consideration of the statutory instruments before us. Furthermore, writing to the cabinet secretary would not necessarily incur a huge workload that might prove to be unnecessary. Can we agree that I, as convener, write on behalf of the committee to the cabinet secretary in relation to the points that Mr Macintosh has raised?
Members indicated agreement.
As I said, no motions to annul any of the four instruments have been received. The committee might be interested to know that the Subordinate Legislation Committee determined that it did not need to report SSIs 2009/169 or 2009/170 to us or to the Parliament.
However, the Subordinate Legislation Committee has reported that it sought clarification from the Scottish Government on regulation 11 of SSI 2009/152 and was satisfied with the clarification that it received.
SSI 2009/154 has also been reported to us, due to a number of drafting and scheduling issues. The Subordinate Legislation Committee was satisfied with the Government's response on the drafting issue but, with regard to the scheduling issue, the Subordinate Legislation Committee reports the instrument to the committee and the Parliament on the ground that
"due account should be had to scheduling issues … to avoid reference to provisions contained in a still to be made instrument … as a matter of good drafting practice."
Given that the Subordinate Legislation Committee has pointed the issue out, and that we will receive a number of SSIs in relation to the 2007 act, I suggest that we point out to the Government that it is important that any SSIs that come before the committee are factually correct and do not refer to some other SSI that may be made at some point in the future. Otherwise, it is an impossible job for the committee to judge whether or not the contents of instruments are accurate or appropriate. Do members agree with that suggestion?
Members indicated agreement.
If members have no further comments, are we agreed that the committee has no recommendations to make on SSIs 2009/152, 2009/154, 2009/169 and 2009/170?
Members indicated agreement.
Meeting closed at 12:38.