Local Government and Communities Committee
Meeting date: Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Official Report 506KB pdf
Contents
Petition
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (Housing Associations) (PE1539)
Welcome back. Agenda item 2 is consideration of PE1539, in the name of Anne Booth, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make an order under section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 to make all housing associations subject to the provisions of that act.
At this point, I declare an interest. Anne Booth is a constituent of mine, and I also know Sean Clerkin, who is associated with the petition. I welcome them to the gallery. At this point in the proceedings they are not, unfortunately, allowed to contribute, but we welcome them both.
The petition was previously considered by the session 4 Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, which agreed to keep it open until the Scottish Government had consulted on whether registered social landlords should be covered by the freedom of information regime. That was not due to happen until this session, so the petition was handed over for this committee to deal with.
The committee agreed during its business planning meeting that it would consider the petition following closure of the Scottish Government’s consultation. That consultation has now closed and it received 71 responses, which have been published. It is less clear, however, when the Scottish Government will be in a position to provide a formal response.
I invite members’ comments.
This important petition, which has now been running for two and a half years, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to bring RSLs within the freedom of information regime. The Scottish Government has consulted on the matter and is considering the consultation responses and its next steps. We do not have the power to introduce an order; Government ministers would have to do that. My view is that we have urged as much as it is possible to urge, so it might be advisable to close the petition.
Are there any other comments?
Members: No.
We have some options. I will run through them now. I invite members to consider whether we wish to take any action in relation to the petition. Mr Wightman has suggested one of those actions: we could close the petition. We could also wait until the Scottish Government provides a formal response before we consider our next steps, or we could write to the Scottish Government for an update and an indicative timescale for the outcome of its consultation, then update the petitioner in due course.
With the committee’s agreement, I would like to give my views on our options. We will clearly have to close the petition at some point, but I think that the appropriate time to close it will be when the Scottish Government has made its final decision on whether to introduce legislation. I think that it is reasonable for the committee to seek certainty about a timescale, as well as for the petitioner to get such certainty. While noting that we are moving towards the petition eventually being formally closed, I suggest that we agree to keep it open for the time being, that we write to the Scottish Government for an update and an indicative timescale for the outcome of its consultation and, as I said, that we update the petitioner in due course. Is that agreeable to the committee?
I am happy to support that suggestion. It is important that there is clarity for both the committee and the petitioner, so it would be appropriate to write to the Scottish Government to ask for more clarity on the timescale. When we get that, we can work towards closing the petition.
As Alexander Stewart said, the convener’s suggestion seems to be a fair and reasonable way forward.
There is a wider issue about petitions that stay open for a number of years and about giving certainty and finality to petitioners, and we are very aware of that. It is also worth noting that, when the petition is eventually closed, the Scottish Government, should it introduce legislation, will do so by means of an instrument that will be subject to affirmative procedure. At that point, the petitioners and others will be able to provide written evidence to the committee, and we will look at that.
For confirmation, do members agree that we will write to the Scottish Government for an update and an indicative timescale for the outcome of its consultation, and that we will update the petitioner?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you.