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Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee 09 December 2020 [Draft]

09 Dec 2020 · S5 · Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Item of business

Subordinate Legislation

Island Communities Impact Assessments (Publication and Review of Decisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 [Draft]

Wheelhouse, Paul SNP South Scotland Watch on SPTV

I thank Jamie Halcro Johnston for that useful question. Clearly, there are provisions in the 2018 act and regulations to cover the issue of publication. I certainly identify with what he is saying, not least because we want to avoid duplicate requests. If there is already a request that fulfils the interests of a person who potentially wishes to request a review, and it has been published, they should be able to see that one is already in the system and perhaps support that application rather than creating their own. Under the 2018 act, a relevant authority has been obliged only to publish its reasons for not carrying out an island communities impact assessment, but now all island communities impact assessments are to be published in the interests of transparency. A supplementary provision is being introduced that is considered to be appropriate for the purpose of giving full effect to the act. It will, we hope, allow the public to access the decision making on whether an ICIA has already been carried out. On what we expect the relevant authorities to publish on their websites, we hope that the process that has been developed is transparent and will give people confidence. We require relevant authorities to publish the application form for any third-party representations followed by the publication of responses to those third-party representations, any written submissions that were requested by the relevant authority and any decision notice. Jamie Halcro Johnston makes a good point about having a central place where it would be possible for anyone to see what is being published by any authority, because that could be helpful to a potential applicant. I will ask Paul Maxton to say what our thoughts are on trying to collate all those reports into one place, with your forbearance, convener.