SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS

WEDNESDAY begins with a Procedures Committee Debate on Procedures in relation to the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

The Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 provides for the appointment of a Commissioner for Public Appointments.  The Act gives the Commissioner various duties – such as preparing and publishing a Code of Practice in respect of the making of appointments or recommendations for appointments and reporting to the Parliament when the Code of Practice has not been, or appears likely not to be, complied with and where Scottish Ministers have failed or are likely to fail to act on this non-compliance.

Currently, however, there are no provisions within the Parliament’s standing orders which relate to the Commissioner’s role and, consequently, there is a lack of clarity over the way in which a breach of the Code of Practice would be dealt with in procedural terms.  It is also unclear how the requirement for the Parliament to be consulted on the Code and Equalities Strategy would operate in practice.  In view of this, the Presiding Officer wrote to the Convener on 24^th June 2004 to ask the Committee to develop procedures for Parliamentary consideration of consultations or reports made under the Act.

The Committee, therefore, recommends that:

• All statutory consultations, including those received from the Commissioner for Public Appointments, should be laid or otherwise provided to the Parliament, and notice of receipt published in the Business Bulletin;

• The remit of the Standards Committee should be extended to include public appointments;

• Statutory consultation documents should be referred by the Bureau to a lead Committee, to consider and report to the Parliament, and then debated by the Parliament as a whole;

• Reports of non-compliance laid or otherwise provided by the Commissioner for Public Appointments should be referred directly to the Standards and Public Appointments Committee for consideration;

• Where the Commissioner has asked that any information contained in the report of non-compliance be treated confidentially, this information should be made available only to members of that Committee; and

• Where the Commissioner has directed Ministers to delay an appointment under section 2(8)(b) of the Public Appointments Act, there should be a debate in the Chamber on the report of non-compliance, informed by a report by the Standards and Public Appointments Committee.

Read the report in full

This is followed by an Executive Debate on Housing.

Last Tuesday saw the publication of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which aims to promote a culture change in the private sector so that owners take more responsibility for the upkeep of their properties.

Existing local authority powers are focused on serious disrepair, with little attention paid to symptoms of deterioration before it becomes acute. The Bill, therefore, will give new powers to councils to help them deal with disrepair in the private sector that is not yet serious but which, with lack of maintenance, will lead to serious disrepair.

New powers will allow councils to adopt a comprehensive, area-based approach to dealing with housing condition problems. They will replace Housing Action Areas, which have been very successful in addressing concentrations of housing that fall below the Tolerable Standard, but do not reflect current circumstances now that only about 1% of the housing stock fails to meet the Tolerable Standard.

Currently, councils are required to provide grant assistance when a statutory notice is served on a house.  This is not consistent with the principle of individuals having responsibility to maintain their own houses. The Bill replaces mandatory grant with mandatory assistance. Measures will support a “scheme of assistance” approach under which councils decide what sort of support is appropriate in individual circumstances, such as advice, practical assistance and loans, as well as grants.  Councils must also publish their criteria for making those decisions.  Powers in the Bill will allow Ministers to make directions about the way councils provide assistance.

Powers to require the provision of a single survey by a seller to prospective buyers when a home is marketed would ensure that someone buying a house has detailed information about its condition, providing a market incentive for house owners to maintain their property.

To promote better house conditions, it is proposed to extend the statutory repairing duties for private landlords and to give a Private Rented Housing Panel powers to adjudicate where a tenant considers the landlord is failing to meet the standard. Tenants in the social rented sector already have a high level of protection in relation to their landlords' repair performance, including complaints procedures, the right to repair, regulation of landlords, and an ombudsman.

Other provisions will transfer legislation on the licensing of houses in multiple occupation (HMO) into a housing context; improve the rights of owners of mobile homes on rented stances; strengthen the registration of private landlords and prevent private landlords unreasonably refusing consent for adaptations to suit the needs of a disabled occupant; and extend the Tolerable Standard to include electrical safety and basic thermal insulation.

The Executive is supporting local authorities by providing funding for work on private sector properties. Over the next three years the Executive will allocate £200 million in Private Sector Housing Grant to local authorities for this purpose.

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate entitled Franz Ferdinand Rocks from Pauline McNeill (LAB).

THURSDAY morning is given over to a Conservative Party debate on Education.

As is normal with opposition debates, no motion has yet been published.  As always, however, the motion will be published in Section F of the Business Bulletin in due course and a full transcript of the debate will be available in the Official Report from 08:00 on Friday.

This is followed by First Minister’s Question Time.

In the afternoon, after Question Time (for the departments featured in the themed section this week, see Section 1 above), there is a Ministerial Statement on Dentistry.

As always with such statements, they must be made first to Parliament and so no further details are available at present.  A full transcript will be available in the Official Report from 08:00 on Friday, however.

This is followed by the Stage 1 debate of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill.

Introduced on 29^th October 2004, the primary policy objective of the Bill is to better protect children from sexual abuse.  Two elements of the Bill focus on this objective:

• “Meeting a child following certain preliminary contact” – creation of a new criminal offence aimed at preventing an adult sexually abusing a child, following some earlier communication between the two during which the adult seeks to gain the child’s trust. The Bill is concerned with the problem of sexual abuse following what is sometimes described as “grooming.”

• Risk of Sexual Harm Orders (RSHOs) – creation of a new type of civil preventative order. The Bill would allow a court to impose an RSHO, following an application by the police, prohibiting an adult from doing certain things set out in the order. The prohibitions would have to be necessary for protecting a particular child or children in general, from harm. An order could be made without any allegation of behaviour amounting to a criminal offence.

A third element of the Bill seeks to better protect both adults and children from sex offenders:

• Sexual Offences Prevention Orders (SOPOs) – allowing courts to impose SOPOs when dealing with people who have been prosecuted for certain offences.  Courts are currently able to impose such orders following an application by the police.

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate on Commonwealth Week from Margaret Ewing (SNP).