Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Official Report 558KB pdf

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Disabled Persons’ Parking Places (Scotland) Act 2009

Item 3 is post-legislative scrutiny of the Disabled Persons’ Parking Places (Scotland) Act 2009. The committee will take evidence from Jackie Baillie MSP, who was the member responsible for introducing the bill in 2008, as part of our post-legislative scrutiny of the 2009 act. I think that I sat on the Local Government and Regeneration Committee at that time, Ms Baillie. I welcome you here this morning—thank you for coming. I give you the opportunity to make some opening remarks.

Thank you for that, convener, and for the invitation to the meeting. I am pleased that the committee is doing post-legislative scrutiny in this area. You will forgive me, of course, because eight years is a long time, so some of the fine detail may escape me. However, I will give you the background to why I engaged with the process in the first place. It started with a constituency case, probably about a decade ago, which seems a long time ago indeed. The case involved a neighbour dispute that arose because, frankly, the next-door neighbour of the constituent who came to me persistently parked in his disabled parking bay outside his home. The nature of his disability meant that, if that happened, he literally could not get out of his car and get to his front door and into his home.

What I did was what you would expect any MSP to do: I contacted the police. However, the police told me that they could not enforce the disabled parking bay because it was an advisory one. I contacted the council that put in the bay, but it could not do anything either. I went so far as to put the neighbour on the front page of my local newspaper in the hope that that might embarrass him into better behaviour. Unfortunately, that did not work. I contacted the West Dunbartonshire access panel, which was very helpful in suggesting that what we needed to do was consider whether the legislation was suitable. After investigating whether the issue could be the subject of a member’s bill, I commenced a two-year journey and was very pleased indeed when the act was passed in 2009.

The committee has taken wide-ranging evidence on the 2009 act. I hope to help the committee by responding to its questions, but it might be helpful for me to indicate that the act—like the bill—is very narrowly focused and does a couple of things. First, it makes all the advisory bays in Scotland enforceable, which is done through a process of engagement by local authorities. Secondly, it encourages all businesses that provide private off-street parking to make their disabled bays enforceable too. The bill skirted between devolved and reserved areas, but we managed the balance pretty well.

At the end of the day, it is about how we ensure that disabled people get the same access to their homes and shops that the rest of us enjoy. I hope that the 2009 act has contributed to ensuring that just a bit.

Thank you, convener.

Thank you, Ms Baillie.

You have given us the background. Given that you will have heard all the evidence that we have had as part of our scrutiny, do you think that the 2009 act has achieved its objectives in practice?

That is an interesting question and absolutely the right one to ask. My belief is that, yes, on balance, the 2009 act has achieved its practical objectives. In essence, the aim of the act was to make all advisory bays enforceable, which it has achieved. The evidence that the committee has taken shows interesting variations in enforcement activity. I will focus on that aspect just now and develop it in response to other questions.

At the time when we were considering the on-street parking provisions for disabled drivers, six out of the 32 local authorities, or thereabouts, had decriminalised their parking and the rest relied on police enforcement. That position has now changed in that 16 out of 32 local authorities have decriminalised their parking and I understand that another two decisions are in the pipeline. The reality of that situation is that those local authorities will employ wardens who can be directed. What is fascinating is that, as I know from responses to parliamentary questions that I lodged, the majority of those local authorities do not just cover their costs but generate a surplus that many put back into the general funds that they apply to other useful things that they do. I accept that, in areas where the police still enforce fixed-penalty notices for car parking, disabled bays are not a top priority for them. The enforcement therefore tends to be reactive rather than proactive. The enforcement is much more proactive in town centres because of the density of parking there, but it is reactive enforcement in residential areas. The police will be able to act in the kind of situation that my constituent was in, but it is probably too much to expect them to enforce disabled bays in residential areas when there are other priorities and resource constraints.

What is interesting about the off-street parking that is provided by private businesses and out-of-town shopping centres is that it is reserved and we cannot legislate to compel private business owners to do anything. However, the minister at the time of the passing of the act was helpful in saying that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 places requirements on the owners of private off-street parking and that the 2009 act emphasised their duties in that regard, particularly their duty to ensure there is reasonable access for customers and users of their services.

There were some obvious areas for enforcement in relation to on-street parking, where we had responsibility. In relation to off-street parking, where we did not have legislative competence to force people to do things, we tried to encourage people and to use local authorities, which understood what was going on in their areas, as exemplars.

On balance, I think that the bill has been successful in improving the rights of disabled people and—in a small, focused way—ensuring that parking is enforceable.

11:15  

Is there anything that you would now change?

The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing. What we tried to do with the bill—I remember the discussions with the bill team—was to future proof it. We did not specify in the bill the transport regulations or enforcement measures that needed to be followed. The idea was that the traffic signs and regulations at that time and in the future would apply to the bill so that, whatever changes were made to other pieces of legislation, the provisions in the bill would stand. I am pleased that we took that approach, because parking is an area that changes.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that local authorities are finding the duties that are placed on them slightly onerous. It was clear from the evidence that you took from supermarkets and private car park owners that they are doing a lot of positive work to enforce the bays. The difference is that they are choosing to do it themselves rather than having local authorities do it for them.

Fife was mentioned earlier, and I think that its approach is proportionate and sufficiently proactive. It does not write to everybody every two years. It has a constant website, which is refreshed. It took care of its in-house parking first—both its on and off-street facilities. It then looked at other public bodies such as health centres and hospitals, and then it engaged in conversations with supermarkets and others. As part of planning and development, it talks to people about new developments so that appropriate things are built in from the start.

The fact that it is not local authorities that are enforcing disabled parking bays is not, for me, the test of success. If car park owners are doing it using other means of enforcement, that is a success of the bill. However, I recognise that some local authorities might find the duties on them onerous. I therefore suggest the sharing of good practice, and I understand that the Minister for Transport and the Islands, Humza Yousaf, is about to encourage that.

Does it matter whether councils write out to private car park operators if those operators have already made improvements?

If they are already operating appropriate regimes and we are aware of that, I do not see the need to constantly write to them. We were not prescriptive about that, saying, “You need to write to them.” We simply said that contact needed to be established. I think that Fife’s approach is proportionate. I welcome the fact that there are different experiences across different local authorities. Humza Yousaf is bringing together a stakeholder group of parking managers, and I encourage him to include some representatives from the private sector but also organisations that represent disabled people.

Thank you.

We have talked about inconsistencies in enforcement. When we had the groups here giving evidence, some of them said that we need a national public awareness campaign to try to educate and inform the public about where we are. What is your view on that? Did you think about a campaign when you were putting the bill together?

We did, and your predecessor committee raised the need for a public awareness and information campaign.

The majority of us are actually quite law abiding and we tend to avoid committing offences such as parking in disabled parking spaces, but the bill, as it was taken forward, had the benefit of raising awareness not just in the Parliament but across the country. I was sent a variety of photographs, which I will not share with the committee, of leading lawyers parking in disabled parking bays, using their mothers’ blue badges to access parking outside Glasgow sheriff court. There were also pictures of police cars parked in disabled parking bays—you name it. That raised awareness.

We asked the minister at the time, Stewart Stevenson, to consider undertaking a public awareness campaign, led by Transport Scotland, the police or whoever, to drive home some of the powerful messages that were coming from disabled people. The catchphrase that I always remember is, “If you want my disabled parking place, please have my disability, too.” That led people to understand the consequences that wrongly parking in a disabled parking space had for someone who was disabled. When people understand that, the majority of them change their behaviour.

At the time, I thought that a public awareness campaign was essential. It should not always be left to the voluntary sector to do such things; Government should step up to the plate. I am disappointed, because I do not think that there was a campaign, but it is never too late, and I encourage the transport minister to consider having one.

I agree. You have hit the nail on the head. If we can get the message over using lots of examples, the public will look at the issue differently. That is vital. It may well become a recommendation.

Oh! Steady on, Mr Stewart. We have still to discuss the matter.

I said “may well”, convener.

You never know.

First of all, how is your constituent?

They have subsequently passed away. I am sorry to inform you of that. It has been 10 years.

I am sorry to hear that. You mentioned that the bill had to navigate reserved and devolved functions. There have been changes since then. Signage is a devolved matter, and we have heard views, principally from disabled groups and, indeed, councils, about whether signage should always be required, because sometimes it seems to be a bit of a hindrance. It would be useful to hear your comments on that.

We have heard evidence from Glasgow City Council and Aberdeen Council that they want to create enforceable disabled parking bays without the need for a designation order. I am not clear whether that is a devolved matter. Perhaps you could comment on that, too.

Let me take your second point first. At the time, we had so many advisory bays—about 85 per cent of all bays in Scotland were advisory—because the traffic regulation order process was complicated, long and costly. Instead of doing them in large batches, local authorities were doing them in ones and twos. That was not efficient, but in fact the TRO system was onerous.

I am not sure whether the ability to create enforceable disabled parking bays is a devolved matter, but the signage element is. Right at the start of this work, the self-same local authorities, echoed by others, said, “If you could just fix the TRO process, we wouldn’t see the need to use advisory bays, because the process would be simpler.”

You are right about the traffic regulations. On 23 May 2016, they were devolved to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. We have not changed anything about them so far; that power has yet to be used. However, in 2016, across the United Kingdom, traffic sign requirements were changed and the Department for Transport published a circular on new regulations. It may be helpful if I read out part of it:

“The placing of upright parking signs in combination with bay markings is no longer required. Instead, it is for traffic authorities to determine the appropriate signing and marking combination needed to convey to drivers any waiting, loading and parking controls contained in an underpinning traffic order.”

Therefore, local authorities have the power to do that. I suspect that they are waiting until they get clarity and guidance from the Scottish Government now that the power is devolved. The legal contention is that they could use the powers to do away with the requirement for signage. That would mean that we would need to ensure that the bays are marked appropriately and painting is refreshed from time to time, but we could do away with the expensive signage that local authorities have to put in place. That would undoubtedly be helpful. Again, I encourage the Scottish Government to look at the issue.

The new regulations do not change my legislation, because it is adapted to whatever regulation is in place at the time.

That is useful for now; I will come back in later.

We heard a lot about off-street parking on private land. As you know, we had a representative of one of the large supermarkets and one from private car park providers here. It appeared from the evidence that we took that the situation was quite patchy as regards whether local authorities were meeting their obligations in contacting such organisations at least every two years. When they did that, some local authorities would write to all the main players in their area; others would put a notice in a newspaper or whatever. Do you think that there has been appropriate buy-in from local authorities in that regard? Has there been any buy-in at all from the private sector? Is there an opportunity to improve things in this area?

I will deal with the private sector first. At the start of the bill process, we faced the unusual situation whereby, with awareness being raised, suddenly there was a queue of supermarkets and out-of-town retail centres all competing with one another to talk about their disabled bay enforcement practice. On delving beneath that to understand what was going on, it turned out that Asda had surveyed its customers, a staggering 93 per cent of whom said that they wanted disabled bays outside Asda to be enforced. For Asda, the issue went from one that was about disabled people and their spending power to one that all its customers cared about.

At the time, Asda used the fines quite imaginatively to pass on any profit that it made to local community groups and voluntary sector organisations. I am sure that the convener, as someone who has an Asda on his patch, will probably have presented some of those cheques in the past. Asda used the measure as a means of improving customer service to all customers and paying something back into the community.

I know that the committee took evidence from Tesco. At the time the bill was being considered, I think that Tesco planned to engage marshals to enforce the bays. Now, it is using new hand-held technology that means that it does most of the enforcement itself.

The committee also took evidence from NCP, which seemed to be enforcing the disabled parking bays in its provision very proactively.

Because the private sector understands that this is a customer service issue, it has already taken measures—indeed, it took measures as a consequence of the bill, never mind the act. I know that local authorities have been proactive when planning applications have come in for out-of-town or town centre retail establishments, or from supermarkets. They have worked with the companies concerned to ensure that there is a sufficiency of disabled parking bays. As I touched on earlier, where the difference lies is that most of those companies prefer to have control of enforcement themselves, because it gives them the opportunity to cancel fines, if they feel that it is appropriate to do so, without a customer having to go through a prolonged appeals process; in other words, it gives them the opportunity to be flexible in how they respond to particular issues.

If there is a lack in the private sector, I think that it is perhaps among our smaller high street businesses, which really do not understand the need for such provision. However, on high streets I would look to individual local authorities to ensure that there is ample provision and that it is enforceable.

When it comes to the local authorities, as with everything, there has been a variable response. Some authorities have embraced the legislation—they have treated the issue as one of disability rights and have been very proactive in ensuring that there is capacity and that it is enforced. However, I think that there are issues with parking enforcement in general. Lots of people who come to our constituency surgeries will tell us that a certain street has double yellow lines but people park on it all the time, that certain areas are not enforced or that someone parks over their driveway. That is a problem that local authorities grapple with.

When it comes to promoting the enforcement of off-street disabled parking, my contention is that it is extremely important that we encourage the private sector and that we keep up pressure and awareness. At the end of the day, if we want to get the right balance between what businesses perceive to be their needs and the rights of disabled people, we need to remind businesses of exactly what is required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. People with a disability must have access to their premises and to services, and they must be able to move around and go to the shops and to their town centres in the same way that the rest of us can do.

That is very helpful.

It is often asserted that the question of whether the fines that supermarkets impose are legally enforceable is a very grey area. Is there a weakness in self-enforcement regimes?

11:30  

There has in the past been comment about whether such fines are enforceable. My understanding is that they are, but I am not a lawyer, so you would need to check with somebody who is more qualified than I am. The majority of people who are fined at supermarkets pay their fines, and the regime has certainly had a deterrent effect.

When I took the bill through Parliament, I gave examples that people had reported to me of young men driving up in their flash cars, parking in a disabled bay and saying, “It’s okay—I’m only here for a minute; I’m just in to get a loaf of bread,” or a pint of milk or whatever, and a disabled person being left stranded. That kind of thing is happening less because people are more aware. When people have been fined a couple of times, they will, if they are not persistent offenders, stop engaging in that kind of behaviour because it is expensive.

As to whether those fines are legally acceptable, they are in place, and the systems have been running for some time now. If there is a challenge to them, I would expect the courts to resolve the matter.

One of the concerns about supermarkets—I highlight supermarkets because our constituents may visit them and experience this situation on a daily basis—is that the standard of enforcement may vary between supermarket chains, and even within chains. There may be differences in the layout of car parks, the amount of disabled parking bays, how vigorously the rules are enforced and how confident staff feel about asking a customer to move. The rules can be enforced after the event, but the disabled person will not have got their parking bay. The answer is to have someone occasionally saying, “Get your car shifted—you can’t park there.” That is what we would like to see in the large supermarkets.

Should we move towards an agreed set of minimum standards—whether statutory or otherwise—that would apply across supermarkets? Supermarkets could sign up to those standards with local authorities proactively, in the same way as when you took the bill through Parliament and supermarkets were falling over each other to be exemplars of best practice. We have to return to that and reinvigorate the approach somehow.

I could not agree more. It would be good to have minimum standards for what should be expected across the board, whether someone is in Tesco, Asda, Morrison’s or anywhere like that.

My appreciation of the current situation is that parking for two or three nearby stores is often bundled together and the stores share enforcement between them, with a warden or marshal who appears from time to time. With the advent of new technology, supermarkets such as Tesco are able to have in-store staff do that. That picks up on your point, which is about enforcement taking place not after the event but as it is happening. It is about not only being able to provide evidence, but encouraging staff members to challenge people who are engaged in such behaviour.

Most of the supermarkets that I know of have given training in customer service. A lot of private car parks have also trained their operatives to ensure that they approach people in the right way. They view enforcement not just as realising a profit from a fine, but as educating people so that they do not do the same thing again. The fine is there if all else fails. Supermarkets have been quite proactive in that respect, but you are right to highlight that there is variation. It would be good to have minimum standards across the board, and for supermarkets to do what they do best and exceed those standards.

I suppose I am trying to get at the question of whether the conversation would be much more dynamic if minimum standards were set—either nationally or by local authorities—and duties were placed on the sector. I would much rather the approach was voluntary, to be honest, but that does not always work. The issue is whether a duty should be placed on the sector to conform. Perhaps supermarkets could help to produce minimum standards.

At present, it seems that the requirement on local authorities to contact off-street parking providers and private providers—supermarkets in particular—has been a bit of a waste of time. It is kind of happening and kind of not happening, and when it does happen no one responds.

Therefore there is a bit of the legislation that is very well intentioned and could deliver improvement and change, but is just sitting there and not being used. Have you any suggestions on how we transform the debate on that?

The problem that we have with imposing minimum standards is that we do not have legislative responsibility for doing so. That is why the 2009 act skirts around the issue and uses encouragement and voluntary approaches to try to create change.

We recognise that it will be difficult for some local authorities, because of the nature of the parking provision in their area. We rely on them—as part of their planning duties rather than their parking management ones—to ensure that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is applied and that there are sufficient spaces. That is the point when local authorities should encourage providers.

There is variation in what local authorities have done to embrace the 2009 act. Fife’s approach was very proportionate and sensible. If a provider writes to an authority once every two years, and that is the only contact that it has on the issue, it will not be encouraged to change and will not understand why change is such a good thing to do. Maybe it will not have heard of Disabled Motoring UK’s baywatch campaign or the Capability Scotland survey that used mystery shoppers to look at the sheer scale of the abuse of disabled parking bays and looked at the impact of that abuse on the retail provider. Making the business case to retailers who are not currently engaged is the way forward. We could adopt an approach based on minimum standards, but we would butt up against the reservation in law.

Some local authorities would certainly benefit from the sharing of good practice. That takes me back to the minister’s stakeholder group, which is something to be welcomed. If I am right, the minister is consulting on opportunities to deal with the misuse of advisory disabled off-street parking bays. Perhaps Government intervention to bring people together, which I would have welcomed at the beginning, is something to be welcomed now.

That is good, but, just for the record, are you open to reframing the discussion with the private sector? That could include issues about what is or is not reserved, and it should include the issue about dictating what minimum standards look like. It could also include a best practice standard to which the private sector could sign up.

Sure. The British Parking Association may indeed have such a standard already. Anything that promotes an increase in the number of enforceable disabled parking bays and their actual enforcement is to be welcomed in whichever sector it is in.

Good morning, Ms Baillie. Thank you for joining us. I want to take the point slightly further, because there might be some confusion about the on-going duty.

The City of Edinburgh Council has said that it has done the exercise four times. It feels that it is both labour intensive and resource intensive—it costs up to £12,000 every two years—and it is not getting many positive responses to it. The council goes on to say that it seems that, once businesses establish that they are responsible for the costs associated with the lines and signs, they decide not to proceed. Could there be a different approach? It seems to me that Edinburgh council is taking a very literal approach to the duty, whereas you say that Fife Council approaches it in a different way. Is there leeway for looking at the duty differently?

My understanding of the duty, as we wrote it, is that there needs to be contact every two years. Provided that the contact is regular, frequent and on a two-year cycle, how it is done is best left to local authorities. There is undoubtedly a difference between cities and less urban local authorities, and local authorities have different scales of responsibility in that regard. However, already we hear that there is no longer any requirement for signs, that authorities are talking about painting bays and that enforcement would be undertaken by the local authority, where it has decriminalised parking, or by the police. I would have thought that being able to transfer that responsibility to somebody else would be in the interests of the private sector, so I am not sure that cost is necessarily such a barrier once businesses understand what a benefit it is to them as far as customer service is concerned.

I am not convinced that those local authorities that say that it is far too onerous are thinking creatively about it. It is a balance between the duties placed on local authorities to enhance local areas and the rights and opportunities of disabled people—I know which side I come down on.

On off-street private car parking, have you thought about any unintended consequences for disabled drivers? One that springs to my mind is that some of the car park operators issue fines to disabled drivers who perhaps have badges that are upside down or that are not on the dashboard because they have slipped on to the seat. Those examples come from previous constituency casework.

Another issue is the way in which councils approach on-street parking and the costs of what they have to put in place. In my area, people who have been refused blue badges have included elderly folk who are awaiting hip replacements or who have osteoarthritis or dementia. I am trying to get to the bottom of why people who should obviously be given blue badges have been refused. Is that an unintended consequence of the 2009 act? If more people have blue badges, does the 2009 act put more costs on councils to provide more disabled spaces in towns?

I will deal with the last issue first, because I, too, have come across people who we would have thought would have received a blue badge, but who have not.

The 2009 act is entirely separate from the blue badge regulations, which were revised by what I think might have been a member’s bill, and to which different criteria have been applied. I think that there are minimum standards across Scotland, but every local authority interprets them slightly differently. That said, if a provision has been created that says that we must have enforceable parking, it could enter somebody’s mind that they do not want to administer quite so many blue badges. However, in my local authority, the departments are entirely separate, so that crossover in thinking would not happen. A blue badge would typically be issued by the social work section, whereas the enforcement and provision of disabled bays is a matter for the road section. Chinese walls operate, whether they are intended or otherwise. I have not picked up locally any consequence of the legislation for the number of blue badges, because they are dealt with separately.

On enforcement, you are right in the sense that we did not set the standards for enforcement; we simply said that, whatever regime applies, it applies in the context of the bill. If there had already been enforcement problems, they would continue. In some retail settings, I have seen enforcement carried out with a degree of vigour that probably is about having a target for the number of fixed penalty notices issued, rather than having a process of education, with enforcement if it fails. Such enforcement would likely happen in any case.

You are absolutely right that there are occasions when blue badges fall off the dashboard. In cases when supermarkets administer enforcement, they usually take the view that they will cancel those enforcement incidents because they care about the people as customers and it is a reasonable excuse to have. The supermarkets exercise that responsibility quite sensibly. The issue is about them having control.

You mentioned larger off-street premises, where the customer relationship often does the job. On the lack of awareness at smaller off-street premises, I think that you are not minded to have much sympathy with the councils in Edinburgh and Glasgow wanting to get rid of the duty to engage. However, what more could be done to focus on smaller premises, which I presume that disabled people visit just as often as, if not more often than, larger retail premises?

11:45  

You are absolutely right—the act is about access to the whole high street. In my area, the council already provides sufficient enforceable disabled bays to provide the capacity to enable disabled people to access most of the shops on my high street.

I think that the way to contact businesses is not necessarily through a letter that gets put to one side because it is not part of somebody’s core business but through more meaningful engagement. That is time consuming, but lots of access panels exist across the country that are happy to do such work and which would welcome a public awareness campaign that coincided with it. It would not be beyond the Scottish Government to organise a public awareness campaign that was backed by local authorities, perhaps engaging with the Federation of Small Businesses and the Scottish Chambers of Commerce—the networks that exist out there—which could promote good practice to their members, as well as engaging with individual businesses.

About 1 million people in Scotland identify themselves as in some way disabled. When I introduced my bill, there were 230,000 blue badge holders. There is an army of people out there with a pound in their pocket who want to spend it. Businesses understand that. If we also make them understand the challenges for disabled people in accessing their shops, which are preventing those people from spending that pound in those premises, we will find that people wake up to the issue.

For me, this is an issue of disability rights and of good business. We should be taking that message out to the shops that have not yet realised that this is for them, too.

Your evidence suggests that the 2009 act has been quite successful in achieving its aims and that there is probably no need for any further legislation on the act’s specific objectives. Other activity—such as the things that you just mentioned, the transport minister’s stakeholder group and action on signage if and when there is a legislative opportunity—could all enhance the achievement of the act’s objectives. However, you think that the act is doing a decent job and you are happy for it to remain on the statute book as long as it is needed.

I will always bow to the committee’s view on whether the act needs improvement. However, the bill was tightly defined. I was guided at the beginning—I think that it was good advice—that, if an individual member tries to bite off too much, they will not succeed, so we ignored the temptation to legislate on blue badges or on parking on pavements. That was all placed on our plate, but we said no—we stuck clearly to a focused bit of legislation that made enforceable the 85 per cent of all disabled parking bays that are advisory.

The act does not cover how enforcement is done. The perennial problem remains of whether we can enforce such things. Where are the police when you want them to enforce your disabled parking bay? Some people even debate whether there are sufficient disabled parking bays when they feel that one should be for them.

The act does not deal with any of that. The issue for me, which is worth thinking through, is about the other bits of legislation that would make the act work better. As the convener said, there may be the opportunity to adopt voluntary codes, but we need local authorities and others to embrace the approach; we can make a transformational change on the ground, but we need to keep pushing at it. It is not just a question of ticking the box and moving on.

Of course the act should be kept under review, but the issue is also about implementation. Our history is littered with not just members’ bills but other bills that we have passed but which have not been implemented in quite the way that we would like. Keeping that aspect under constant review is to be welcomed.

I was just looking at my notes, but I cannot find the information that I am looking for, so I apologise that I do not know the answer to my next question. I understand that local authorities have yet to make a number of on-street parking bays enforceable and that some local authorities have not started that process yet. Is it true that implementation is patchy?

I understand that most local authorities have made the bays enforceable. Typically, we ask local authorities to survey all their advisory bays and identify whether they are still needed. If the bays are still needed, the authorities need to promote one traffic regulation order to make them all enforceable.

Annual reports are produced, so we should be able to track progress. Some local authorities have moved at different speeds from others. Glasgow City Council certainly identified and had a list of all its advisory bays quite early. Other areas did not even have a list to begin with and were required to physically look for the bays.

That was the first stage of the process, which I think that the majority of local authorities have done. The process that most of them engage in now applies when a new application is made for a disabled bay. Local authorities make the bay advisory while they wait for the traffic regulation order to make it enforceable. The bulk of bays should be covered, but I am happy to search for the information and bring that back to the committee.

I apologise, because I think that we have that information in front of us, but I cannot find it.

Do any local authorities have long-standing advisory bays that are yet to be subject to a TRO? That might not be the case but, if that was happening, it would be unacceptable and it would be a priority to get those bays made enforceable as soon as possible.

Eight years on from the act, that would be completely unacceptable, to be frank.

Let us not set that hare running. I just thought that I had heard anecdotally that that could be the case.

When a new bay is created, there is the whole issue of making it an advisory bay and then making it subject to a TRO. Do you agree that it would be good to change the regulations so that a TRO is not required to make a bay enforceable?

If it was possible to do that, that would make the process much easier.

Absolutely.

We seem to be all out of questions. Do you wish to make any final comments?

No. I thank the convener and the committee for their courtesy. I hope that you improve the act or at least get the Scottish Government to help with its implementation.

I thank you again for attending. Mr Stewart is already thinking about possible recommendations as a result of the evidence that we have heard, and the committee will certainly consider possible recommendations and contact the Scottish Government about any ways in which the act could be enhanced—I will say “enhanced” rather than “improved”.

11:52 Meeting continued in private until 12:08.