welcome to the fifth meeting in 2015 of the finance committee of the scottish parliament which i'm pleased to say is being translated for years of british sign language i welcome our bsl interpreters uh shauna dixon paul belmonte before we start our formal proceedings i would like to remind everyone to help our bsl interpreters by speaking clearly and not too quickly which some things should really apply to me as well i suppose and keeping questions short and concise and allowing a short pause after the last speaker has finished could i please remind everyone present to turn off any mobile phones tablets or other electronic devices we have received apologies this morning from gavin brown who is unwell our first item of business this morning is to decide whether to take item 9 in private our members agreed yes members have indicated their agreement our next item of business is to take evidence from the cabinet secretary for finance constitution and economy on the london buildings transaction tax addition and modification of reliefs scotland order 2014.
the cabinet secretary is joined for this item by david kuruchi neil ferguson and john sinclair of the scottish government i'd like to invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement explaining the instrument and remind him not to move the motion at this point thank you kavira the uk stamp duty land tax legislation includes a number of miscellaneous reliefs which apply only in relation to specific organizations or types of property the purpose of this order is to include in our lbtt legislation five similar miscellaneous reliefs using the power in section 27 3a of the london buildings transactions at scotland act 2013 the five reliefs are firstly friendly societies relief which provides relief from lbtt where two or more registered friendly societies amalgamate secondly building society's relief which provides relief with two or more building societies amalgamate thirdly visiting forces and international military headquarters relief which provides relief for land transactions involving the building or enlarging of barracks or camps for a visiting force facilitating the training of a visiting force or promoting the health or efficiency of a visiting force fourthly relief for property accepted in satisfaction of tax under section 11a of the national heritage act 1980 which extends to england scotland wales and northern ireland a land transaction entered into by any museum art gallery library or other similar institution is relieved from stamp duty land tax where property is offered to hmrc by a taxpayer in respect of tax the property may be transferred to one of a range of heritage bodies some government-sponsored cultural and heritage bodies in scotland do have powers to acquire land or buildings this includes acquiring as acceptances in respect and usually requires the specific agreement of ministers if lbtt was to be incurred by cultural and heritage bodies in such cases any acceptance of land or buildings in lube would would result in a liability on the part of the accepting body to pay lbtt on the acquisition this would in fact be a charge on the public purse this relief from lbtt which is an equivalent position provision to that which is currently in place for sdlt has therefore been added to avoid that outcome fifthly at lighthouse lighthouses relief under section 221 of the merchant shipping act 1995 which extends to england scotland wales and northern ireland a land transaction is released from sdlt if it is entered into by or under the direction of the general lighthouse authorities including the commissioners of northern lighthouses who oversee the lighthouse infrastructure in scotland for the purpose of carrying on services funded through the general lighthouse fund the northern lighthouse board has confirmed that given the widely distributed network of lighthouses and the need for regular changes to reflect changes in shipping traffic to ensure the continued safety of navigation it is it has a regular number of land transactions and that will carry on into the future on rare occasions the board may be directed by the secretary of state to undertake activity that may require such transactions this relief has therefore been included in lbtd to deal with such circumstances and finally convenient the order also makes two amendments to existing reliefs within the lbtt act in support of crafting in scotland it provides for full relief from lbtt for transactions involving the crafting community right to buy under which two or more crofts are bought rather than the partial effect that is available under sdlt the order also makes a minor but crucial amendment to the relief for certain acquisitions by registered social landlords to ensure that if any one of the conditions is satisfied the relief is available very much for that opening statement cabinet secretary i have no questions to see if any colleagues around the table have any questions malcolm just about the community crafting right it's really just for clarification so are you saying that you only get partial relief for one property but you get full relief for more than one property and i'm just wondering and you and i is that different from a stamp duty land tax i just wondered i'm just trying to clarify the position and if that is the case why have you decided to give full relief for multiple purchases well it is full relief and the justification for this is essentially to remove um a particular obstacle that may influence the um a particular judgment being arrived at as to whether or not to exercise the right to buy or not and to assist that process okay um gene i just wanted clarification on the visiting forces in international military headquarters relief um does that mean that they well can you can you give an example of circumstances where an eu army might buy land the only circumstance may be if there was to be um the only circumstance i can consider is where there may be um a military exercise underway that may be planned and taken forward over a sustained period of time and that such um such a a a circumstance would arise okay thank you okay uh there are no further questions from members of the committee so we therefore move to the debate on the motion i'd like to invite the cabinet secretary formally to move motion s4m one two one eight six it move forward thank you comment secretary and i put the question on the motion and the question is that motion s4m be agreed to are we all agreed yes members are all agreed the committee will now publish a short report to the parliament setting a decision on the order our next item of business is to take evidence again from the cabinet secretary on this occasion on three pieces of subordinate legislation relating to the land and buildings transaction tax and one concerning the landfill tax i'd like to invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement thank you kavira i'll explain the purpose of each of the um three instruments which are all subject to the negative procedure in turn and the lbtt administration regulations 2014 the main purpose of this instrument is to allow taxpayers who are unable to quantify the land and buildings transaction tax liability when the price they are paying is either uncertain or is dependent on a contingency to apply to the further payment of tax in the same situations as they would currently apply for deferment from uk stamp duty land tax the regulations set out the framework for such applications and include the decision-making process that revenue scotland must adhere to the grounds for refusing an application to defer a tax payment and their agents for making tax returns and payments the regulations also provide prescribe the evidence that must be provided to revenue scotland for the purposes of relief for alternative finance investment bonds um on the ancillary provision order 2014 to ensure prompt payment and deliver administrative efficiencies the lbtt act requires agents to make a return and pay any tax due before any application to the registers of scotland in respect of the land register or books of council in session can be accepted section 43 of the act creates a link between land registration and payment of lbtt by providing that documents affecting or evidencing a land transaction may not be registered unless a land transaction return has been made and any lbtt jew has been paid this rule has relevance in relation to registers managed and controlled by the keeper including the books of council in session which is a court register the purpose of the ancillary provision order is to introduce a mandatory requirement to submit the appropriate application form when applying for registration in books of council and session of any deed implementing a notifiable transaction this will enable the keeper to fulfill the duty in subsection 43 1 of the lbtt act not to accept an application for registration of documents in the books of council in session until a tax return and payment have been made the transitional provisions order 2014 and relates to lbtt um as um when it becomes chargeable and the commencement date will be set in a commencement order made by scottish ministers under subsection 72 of the lbtt act sdrt will be disapplied in scotland on a date to be appointed by the treasury under subsection 29 4 of the scotland act 2012.
this order defines the commencement date for lbtt by reference to the day after the date appointed by treasury order under these provisions subsection 29.5 of the scotland 2012 makes provision for certain land transactions to which sdot will continue to apply namely a land transaction for which the contract for the transaction was entered into or was substantially performed prior to royal assent of the scotland at 2012 on the first of may 2012. section 29 6 makes provision for certain land transactions to which sdrt will no longer apply for instance where there has been no assignation and where there has been an assignation or sub sale in a contract entered into prior to the first of may 2012. the purpose of this order is to make provision for certain transactions that began under sdlt but have an effective date on or after commencement of lbtt the intention is to ensure firstly that through the transitional period where sdlt is disapplied in scotland and lbtt is introduced such transactions are not taxed twice by both sdlt and land and buildings transaction tax but are subject to one of the taxes and secondly secondly to ensure that if the outcome of the scot and that provisions is that no tax would be payable it is payable under lbtt if it would otherwise have been payable under sdlt the order makes provision to achieve those intentions for 13 different types of land transactions or arrangements involving land transactions thank you very much for that cabinet secretary colleagues around the table of any questions welcome in the consultation three respondents asked whether guidance would be issued to address a perceived lack of detail regarding the information should be provided in a department application the policy note confirms that revenue scotland will publish such guidance in due course uh how long will it be until this information is made publicly available it's the 16th of february okay thank you questions from the committee i'd like to thank the witnesses um this morning i'll just call a one minute recess tell other witnesses to leave yes you're right i'm afraid there's a mistake in my a briefing actually it says you're going to leave at this moment moment and it does say that we should consider it after you have left so my assumption was that you were actually going uh to leave but um we will go through land building through the landfill tax first apologies for that yes could you speak to the landfill tax then apologies thank you thank you convener um the regulations use powers on both landfill tax scott and that 2014 and the revenue scotland taxpayers act 2014 to provide a number of provisions relating to registration accounting credits the scoused landfill communities fund and rules for the weighing of waste the regulations formed a significant part of the scottish government's consultation paper on secondary legislation for scottish landfill tax published in may 2014 we also received feedback on the proposals from a number of consultation events held over the course of the year landfill operators will be able to register with revenue scotland from the 16th of february 2015.
They must do so within 30 days of their intention to carry out landfill activities the regulations also make provision to allow the landfill operator to create any inaccuracy or make changes to their details and a landfill operators first accounting period begins on the day they become registered tax returns should be submitted along with any payment of tax no long no later than 44 days after the end of each accounting period in recognition of points raised in the consultation process we increased this from 30 days in recognition that aligning tax accounting periods with environmental reporting periods return could result in transitional cash flow issues for some operators and the regulations provide for a tax credit system insofar as a person who's paid or is liable to pay tax may be entitled to credit providing prescribed conditions are fulfilled the credit provisions cover three areas bad debts removing material for reuse and recycling and the scottish landfill communities fund the i'll focus on the regulations that establish the scottish landfill communities fund which provides funding for community or environmental projects in recognition of the disamenity experienced in the vicinity of landfill sites i've already made parliament aware of my intention to introduce the proposed enhancement to the tax credit arrangements under which the scourged landfill communities fund will operate as we landfill less it is inevitable that less money will be available to the fund in the coming years increases in the credit cap will not offset the expected decline in tax revenues caused by the amount of material going to landfill i've ensured the regulated approach is appropriate while capping administration costs a maximum of 10 percent to ensure that as large a proportion of contributions as possible goes to project expenditure the 10 ml radius rule that is applied to the uk fund is a matter of much debate i believe that communities most effective a landfill should benefit most from the fund i also recognize that under current arrangements those that suffer from the transportation and transfer of waste going to landfill are ineligible unless they live near the landfill site the regulations also provide that projects near a transfer station will be eligible to apply to the fund the objectives of the fund are set out in the regulations and during the consultation a significant number of stakeholders observed that including waste prevention was a logical addition to the community reuse and recycling objective there was also support for including sites of archaeological interest to the objective allowing funds to be spent on historical buildings provided that the sites are accessible to the public and within the vicinity of the landfill site these proposals have been incorporated in the list of objectives for the scottish landfill communities fund a contribution and any income derived must be spent on approved objective of the fund within the two years of the original contribution been made work is continuing with stakeholders cpap and with other with the other regulator of the uk fund entrust to ensure processes are in place to establish the landfill communities fund and finally convener as part of the consultation we propose changing the way waste is weighed for determining tax when entering a landfill site under the existing system a landfill operator can apply to discount the water content of waste in certain circumstances for example where water has been used to damp down waste to reduce dust the proposal in our consultation was to exclude water discount provisions in the scottish landfill tax the main reason for this was a rain that the arrangements can be quite complex and can allow for tax evasion whilst liquid waste are banned from landfill stakeholders identified concerns around health and safety waste tourism and it would put scottish business at a competitive disadvantage in the light of these arguments i have introduced provisions discounting tax due on non-naturally occurring water from waste deposits along the lines of the uk discount okay thank you very much for that colleagues any questions mark just one community you mentioned the um discussions ongoing regarding the establishment of the the landfill communities fund which obviously at present is administered on a uk-wide basis by end trust have you any indication as to when you expect that to take effect obviously a number of organizations derive funding through landfill communities fund and obviously are waiting to see the success or arrangements that the scottish government envisages yeah i would want that to be in place for the first of april okay uh okay well thank you very much for that cabinet secretaries of our one minute break while our witnesses leave and then we're going to consider those negative instruments i shall restart the the session and the next item of business is to consider the negative instruments and which we have just heard evidence i'd like to ask members if you have any comments you wish to report the instruments members have no comments to make okay moving swiftly on the next item on our agenda is consideration of the community charge debt scotland bill at stage two for this item we are joined by uh marco biaggi the minister for local government and community empowerment who's accompanied by lauren glenn katrina graham uh laura barry and colin brown of the scottish government and i'd like to welcome you to a committee i know it's your first time at the finance committee hopefully it won't be your last and i'd like to invite the minister to make an opening statement if he so wishes thank you and thank you for that slight air of threat to your welcome there this isn't just my first time in front of the finance committee this is my first time in front of any committee in my capacity as minister setting aside the scottish youth parliament that once grilled me very very effectively on education policy i hope that this experience will be perhaps a little bit smoother i would like to welcome the finance committee report that was published it was very helpful committee raised a number of points and the cabinet secretary and deputy first minister has already responded to these points by a letter this session is focusing more on the content of the bill itself so for an opening statement i'd just like to reiterate the the government's thinking as to why the bill is drafted as it is our overriding concern was that local authorities might use the information gathered from voter registration to pursue outstanding poll tax debt we wanted to make crystal clear as well that local authorities were absolved of any obligations they felt they had to collect poll tax debt we wanted to make sure the legislation itself was simple straightforward and unambiguous but we decided therefore to take the approach of extinguishing the liability for the debt i had the legislation been phrased differently for example making it illegal for local authorities to collect poll tax debt this might have caused difficulties for the local authorities had payment arrangements not been cancelled by the debtor we also wanted to ensure that local authorities had sufficient warning of the extinguishing of the liabilities so that the existing payment arrangements could be closed down as section 2 the interpretation section shows the associated liabilities which are also extinguished by the bill are many and various they include interest charges and fines all of which were imposed as part of the process for collecting poll tax and if parliament passes the this bill all of these liabilities will be extinguished with effect from sunday past this not only lifts a burden from the debtor but also from local authorities letting them concentrate as some of them have told this committee on breaking the cycle of debt getting rid of this historic debt will help to do that thank you very much for that opening statement to any colleagues of any questions going going on no amendments have been lodged but we are obliged to reach section and the long title and agree formally to each standing orders allow us to put a single question where groups of sections are to be considered consecutively and that is what i propose to do firstly the question is that sections one to four be agreed to are we all agreed yes members are agreed secondly the question is that the long title agreed to are we all agreed yes we are agreed that ends stage two consideration of the community charge debt scotland bill the parliament has agreed that stage three proceedings will take place on thursday 19th of february because of the recess week that means that the deadline for lodging stage 3 amendments is 4 30 pm on friday 6th of february amendments can be lodged with the clerks and the legislation team i'd like to thank the minister and i'll just have a five minute break to allow him and his um officials to leave and to give members a natural break and allow the next witnesses to come into the committee so thank you very much okay i will now reconvene the session our next item of business is to take evidence on the british sign language scotland bills financial memorandum and from matt griffin msp and joanna hardy of the parliament's non-governmental bills unit i'd like to welcome witnesses to the meeting and invite mr griffin to make an opening statement thank you convener good to be at the finance committee this morning and the bill as it stands would introduce responsibility on the government and to produce a national plan on british sign language and to promote the use of british sign language and public life in scotland i think there's been a gap in in provision in scotland where people use bsl um it's their main language and they don't have the opportunity to learn any other language um and that this bill should start making improvements in in the recognition of that language and the culture of the language and access to services and i'm happy to take any questions on the financial memorandum that you have in front of you thank you very much for that now i know you haven't been to the finance committee before so that the uh generally what will happen is i'll ask you some opening questions and i'll just pass um i'll open the session up i should say two colleagues around the table and we'll take it from there really so first question i would ask basically is just really about the overall cost estimate sim paragraph 11 of the financial memorandum uh points out that the cost estimates provided involve such large margins of uncertainty um and what we've got is cost variances of several million pounds on it and also on a kind of annualized a basis uh your view as i take it that this should be funded fully by the scottish government yeah i mean at first glance obviously a six million pounds estimate at the top the top of the range does seem like a large amount of money but i think it has to be um it should be that's across 117 in public bodies and that figure has spread over five years and with the government's suggested amendments that actually would probably be spread over a period of um seven years um and spread right across those public bodies i think um the scottish government have already committed to two million pounds of funding and so that leaves a gap of a four million that would need to be to be made up some public bodies in response to your call for evidence have said that they would be able to absorb the costs um of their bill within um their own budget but ultimately um it'll be a decision for government and ministers as to whether they choose to provide any additional funding over the two million pounds that they've already committed to now the issue of course would be that if the scottish government was not able or indeed willing to fully fund as you have suggested i mean east loading council says i quote there is a risk of plans having no substance because local authorities are not in a position to allocate new monies to new activity and do not themselves say that bsl should be championed over other inclusive means of communication i mean how would you respond to those concerns um i think that gets to the heart of the reason for the the bill and there's postcode provisional services um across scotland and the bill would aim to have the government set out their priorities for bsl through a national plan and for public authorities to draft their own plans and then report to parliament on the on the progress which would allow um bsl users and all of our constituencies to actually scrutinize what public bodies are are doing and like like i said at the start sign language is for many people the only language that they will ever know and it's not like another minority language where and people have the opportunity and to learn english or garlic or any other language it's for most it's the only language they'll ever know and ever and learn and i think there's a responsibility on public bodies to recognize that and provide the the level of service that you and i would expect um in english okay thank you i mean midlothian council says that the fm and i quote assume as a planning process very specifically for bsl rather incorporating bsl issues into other strategic planning streams associated with inclusion disability and quality in particular work associated with the implementation of c here and there are a number of other organizations that have similar kind of concerns so i understand what you're saying about bsl being obviously unique relative to for example spoken languages but what about their um concerns that middle eastern have uh this by implication detracts from some of the things that they're doing already for example as they've already said in terms of the see here implementation yeah i mean that's a view they're obviously able to take i take a different view in that i don't see british sign language as a disability issue and british sign language is a language and it's a culture in its own right and for me i don't think that um when people consider it their language and their culture that we should ask people to define themselves as disabled and to be honest i think you'd have a big fight on your hands if you were to try and and tell a lot of people i've met over the course of this and developing this bill who use bsl that they are disabled and just because you use a different language from most of us around the table and doesn't and take away from your ability to do anything that we can so i do have an issue with a british sign language being classed as um as a disability or equalities issue this is this bill is is i've been clear from the start that this is about a language um and the language and culture of british sign language um it is unique and and that you can't learn another language and so there are some differences obviously with garlic scots or or english and but like i said this is about the culture and language aspects rather than any disability aspect but surely it must have some equality's um considerations because i mean what you're effectively looking for is people and who use bsl to the same equal access as other people in scotland yeah i'm looking for bsl bsl users to have the same accesses as uri if we were contacting our local authority and about the education service and they were providing if a bsl parent was one to inquire about um a service for their child i would expect them to get that um same level of access the quality of access and i think issue pops up just because of the unique nature of the language and that you can't learn in any other language so you are strained into issues of equality but i've been trying to keep the focus of this purely on a language and cultural issue with the added complication that there is most of the time no opportunity to learn any other language okay just one further area before i open up to colleagues around the table and that's the the scottish association of sign language interpreters um they have um suggested that no costs are provided for ancillary organizations that may be requested to provide information expertise and advice to meet the objectives and understand there's only about 18 interpreters in scotland and there are so so one could suggest is a real shortage of people and how confident are you that um assuming that the costs issues are addressed in terms of the scottish government and local authorities that other organizations there were no unintended consequences which will impact upon them and that they will actually be the the resource in terms of people to actually deliver this and yeah i mean the lack of interpreters is is one of the big motivations behind the bill and it's a sort of check in an egg situation where if you never address the situation then you're never going to increase the number of interpreters available so if we do nothing we could carry on with 80 interpreters or a fallen number of interpreters um forever basically when we consulted on the legislation and and sasley had come back in previous consultations and said that they didn't expect there to be any financial implications um as a result of the bill so um i'm going to go and speak to sasley about and their submission and today just because there's a slight conflict but i mean i think and while they might be expected to contribute to local authorities or public bodies consultation and that could well have a resource implication for them at the same time and there will also be increased demand for interpreter services and the ability for organizations that provide interpreter services or represent bsl users they'll be an opportunity for them to contract for interpreting work and translation work so there may be an increase in income to these in such bodies as well and the government have also suggested streamlining some of the work around public bodies plans and whether that can be streamlined to be a more a locality based consultation or a simpler bsl statement which um i've said i'm happy to to accept those government amendments to streamline some of those costs which should just reduce um some of those burdens if if there are going to be any on those other um organizations okay thank you for that i'm going to open up the session first colleague to ask questions we'll be a deputy convener john to follow by mark hey thank you a convener um yeah i have to confess this is not an area i'm hugely familiar with so some of my questions may be on the kind of simple side of things just following on from what the convener said if there's a shortage of a interpreter services or people able to interpret would that have an impact financially because either i mean if there weren't enough people wouldn't be able to spend the money even if the money was there or is i mean is that with any danger of inflation that costs kind of go up if everybody's looking for these services um it could be the case that costs for interpreters go up if they realize there's a there's a market for that sort of demand but the government have already started work um on a national online translation process they have that in place for nhs 24 where if you're a bsl users you you can and dial into the online translation service um and there are things in development that will reduce some of the translation cost if you're reducing travelling time and things but it goes back to um answer to the convener dwarf if you don't do anything about it you're in a chicken egg situation and and finland's where they have a similar population to us they have 750 interpreters um in scotland we have 80 and that's why there is such a big demand on those services and i hope that um if the bill were to pass that that promotion um of bsl and public life would increase the number of interpreters who are coming through the system and because they're already overstretched okay so there's 80 interpreters and they're serving a population of how many people would only use bsl as a language um it's it's difficult to say exactly there's no exact figure the last census estimated around 13 000 and bsl users um but a lot of the the bsl organizations would question that figure simply because the census is an exercise carried out in english and um for for some bsl users um english isn't their language and and can't respond to the census figures other and figures put um any level of hearing loss in scotland at around a 1 million and but that ranges right across and from mild severe to to profound and but with a similar population in finland like i said 750 interpreters let's say 13 000 or a bit more than that i mean is that all people who have only bsl as a language or do some of them have another language like they could read english um that's there's not there's that level of um sophistication or detail in the figures for consensus for me to be able to answer that accurately and i could come back to um committee with that level of detail if it's there and i can go back to those organizations okay thank you now one of the points that was made was that a the bill does not require these plans that are to be drawn up to be translated into bsl is that something you're looking at or taking on board um that was something that was there purely to keep the costs of the the bill down and the government and their memorandum have suggested an amendment and i'm delighted to see it there that they feel that the plans should be translated into bsl and that they would support that so i'm delighted to accept that amendment and if we got accost for that bit and the government have suggested i think between the range of two to three and a half thousand pounds and per authority and i think that's right johanna sorry a range of um 1250 pounds to 3 150 pounds and per authority to translate their their plans into bsl and the government on that headline six million pounds and the government have taken that into account right so it's not huge money that's fair enough i mean the other suggestion i think you referred to the government had made was that things could be done locally does that mean like several local authorities working together kind of thing yep the government of i've spoken about the and dr alan when i met with some used the the example of um orkney and i'm having orkney council lock my health board and other authorities responding um each responding separately to different consultations and whether there was a possibility to streamline that until locality well whether that could be a a strathclyde region idea whether it would be a health board area region where um public bodies could come together and respond collectively to to reduce the burden and i was open to any amendments on that basis that's great okay thank you i mean another question that came up was this question of the cycle about how often or how quickly people need to get the plans and then reporting the plans and i think your legislation's linked to the parliamentary session whereas there had been i think the government was suggesting seven years which again i assume would reduce the cost slightly but maybe is that too long um the the reason that i had linked it to the parliamentary cycle it wasn't it wasn't for any considerational language planning it was it was purely um related to the political process where um i felt it would be beneficial for the government of the day to introduce their national plan at the start of a parliamentary session and then report on the progress at the end of the parliamentary session um rather than having an incoming government and report on the performance of a previous government's policy priorities and so my suggestion was purely on that basis um on speaking to the government and their experience with the gaelic language act and they've suggested that um the four or five year timetable is perhaps a bit tight and a bit a bit short and that just because of their experience with a garlic language that and they think it's more practical to extend to seven years and so obviously there's a balance between um scrutinizing a government on their own performance but if the government advisers have had those issues with the garlic language act then again as with other suggested amendments from the government i've been happy to accept that um i think you'd suggested to that um when subsequent plans were produced they would be they would cost less and i think the suggestion was 30 percent less presumably because you're kind of revising something that's there already which does make some sense although the kind of counter argument is well expectations are going to rise they're going to become more complex therefore there wouldn't be a saving how do you respond to that it was a it was an anticipation that the the first plan to be produced would require the the largest amount of work and that for the most part um any subsequent one plans would be building on that initial plan and also incorporating um whatever and came out of the performance review and so an expectation that a large amount of the work which would feed into the the second or fourth plan would have been done in the performance review um and that was the basis for the reduction um and costs okay thanks for watching thank you mark before my jean thank you convener i think most of the ground has been covered but perhaps i can just query a couple of things um the the expectation behind well the legislation is that that there would be the production of the plan and that's what all the costing is based on is based around production of the plan is that correct um colleges scotland um in their submission have said um that the committee will want to note that whilst the requirement is to produce a plan only the publication of such a plan will almost certainly increase public expectation that would require additional funds in future years and that obviously is talking about implementation because obviously if you're going to produce a plan uh the the expectation out there would be that that plan would then be implemented can ask why you didn't factor in implementation uh of the plan in terms of either your legislation or your costings i mean i see this um this bill is enabling and providing a platform for the government to set out there and policy priorities i mean i could i could tell you what i think the policy priorities for the the bsl community would be in terms of um support for emma curriculum and bsl and secondary schools and the minimum requirement for a bsl teachers of a specific level of qualification that there's a whole range of policy priorities that um i think would improve and bsl users lives and but this bill is and given government and that plot that platform to set out there and policy priorities so it'll be up it'll be up to the government of the day to decide which area they choose to to focus on so it's difficult for me to then and with that in mind to to choose a particular area that would tie the government's hands and i think if we were talking about that can i focus legislation if it was focusing on um education or provision of of classes then and the price tag associated with that would mean it would really need to be a government bill rather than a private member's bill to be honest so your expectation would be the plan the the the cost of this about the production of the plan and then it is for the assorted public bodies to in the production of that plan determine what bits what the costs etc would be of implementation and and produce their plan accordingly yep okay thanks gene thank you convina good morning mark um i guess my my question is uh perhaps not around the financial memorandum which you should be but uh just an observation really i given the scottish government's ambition for one plus two uh language plan in primary schools and the uh there are experiments in that happening just now or in primary school but i was in a primary school recently and they've selected uh bsl as the the first language that's for primary one uh to do bsl which means they would do that through and start their second language in primary five is that something that you're aware of in the landscape in scotland is now and that that might be something that's already that the government will already be looking at financial implications of introducing uh one plus two i mean that's something that i mean there are there are pockets of of good work and going on um art galleries and museums in glasgow have translated massive amounts of information um into to bsl um one of the the prisoners i think it's hmp grampian um i've started training all their prison staff and and bsl and you've got excellent education facilities like dingwall academy and which is a a center for bsl so there are there are pockets of excellent practice and going on right across the country i'd say on the issue of education and and thing will academy have made representations on this is that um pupils are given the opportunity to learn and bsl as a subject in first and second year and then when they go on to um the new national exams that there is no curriculum and no qualification available to secondary pupils and bsl so because of the pressure for qualifications to get a job went to college or university that most pupils end up dropping in bsl which is an issue for training that next generation of interpreters and and teachers of bsl users to come through so i mean there are pockets of really really excellent and work there and that's something that i hope the the authority plans and would would flag up and give and bsl the bsl community in their own individual constituencies to then start saying well if that has been provided in um ding wall why can't i get access to that service um in my own area in north lanarkshire thank you how long does it take to learn bsl well i mean there are different um levels of qualification level one two three and going right up when there are classes available at harriet watts i'm sure you can look into but i don't know exactly how long it takes to reach a particular level hey malcolm the costume i think mainly if not exclusively about developing and publishing the plan i mean is the assumption there that there'll be one member of staff who'll be doing that for a year or how how did those figures are get arrived that in terms of how much it would cost i think it was a it was a middle management staff and working over a period of a period of months joanna are you able to comment on yet we we we um based the estimate on a member of middle management staff working full-time for six months over the period of the plan so some of that work would come in at the production of the plan and and more work would come in at the end when they're feeding into the performance review and sorry i i haven't looked at the precise wedding of your bill i mean are there requirements in terms of what's in the plan or is it left fairly general in terms what the plan would include the national plan would give the the direction to public bodies and local authorities as to the expectation of and what should be in in their plan so the direction would come from national government and then finally just i mean mark mcdonald's touched on this the costs of implementation so you're saying it's not pertinent to the memorandum is that i mean are you saying that the plan will lead to extra costs but it's just not pertinent to this bill or or what exactly is behind your statement that it's not pertinent to the memorandum but the bill is is purely focused on um the the memorandum is purely focused on the requirement of the bill the requirement in the bill is that um government should produce a national plan block public bodies should produce their own plan and then at the end of at the end of the cycle report on the progress they've made on implementing um their plans so there is no policy direction or particular initiative that is set out in the bill that um we would be able to put a price tag against that will be up to um national government and public bodies as to their own priorities for their own individual unique um constituencies as to what they they chose to put in their national plan with a mind to how they themselves and would fund it i mean i'm totally supportive of the bill but but it is quite an interesting position from a point of view of the finance committee and the financial memorandum because presumably your expectation is that following all these plans there will be more expenditure because otherwise the plans presumably would just be paper plans that didn't change anything so would that be a fair assumption that yes certainly i mean um public bodies who drafted a paper plan and then made no um made no effort to to implement them the the government would report on the performance review to parliament and so constituents would be given their opportunity through their msp to um effectively name and shame public bodies who weren't living up to the their own aspirations through their local plans and there is like i said there is pockets of excellent work already um ongoing and there's no reason why that should be restricted to those um individual areas and by getting a national picture of of what's going on that will give bsl users the ability to challenge their local authorities on why they're not getting the service being provided elsewhere okay thank you thank you and welcome i mean that's concluded questions and committee but just get one or two more to ask myself just before we wind up the session and basically it's on the submission from your own local authority in north lanarkshire i mean as you pointed out you said the bill does not describe any minimum level of activity beyond the production of a local authority plan but what north atlantic should have seen is that there will be potential additional costs for implementation this has just been a touched on and they say that this has not been recognized in fm again as we've touched on but what what north atlantic shall then go on to say is that in relation to education the training costs for training of teaching staff and teaching resources not been calculated um as the impact of the bill has not been fully explored with an educational context and i mean you're not concerned though that and because we haven't gone beyond uh you know the kind of the the development of of plans itself that this could be a circumstance whereby hard press local authorities are saying look the best will in the world you know we can produce a wonderful plan but we really simply cannot um implement the you know what we want to do in terms of rolling this out beyond the plan making it really mean something for people yeah i mean that'll be the responsibility of local authorities that i can't see a local authority as you see position that a wonderful plan with a whole range of outcomes if they know that financially they have no intention um of backing or supporting any of those outcomes i think that would be that would be bad faith in the extreme and the part of the local authorities and when it came to reporting on performance that if an authority had a fantastic national plan and it had done nothing to to implement it then that would be something that the the new minister for bsl would be rightly reason with that authority and um informing parliament of you understand that what you're saying in the you know about naming and shaming et cetera but i'm not like sure i i think take the view that um you know you know if there is also any other resources on there or even the best world in the world what they've said is that figures can't be put in any additional costs arising in this way because it's not possible to estimate how much additional activity we generated from the local plans they say that these they're unable to quantify them as unknown um and they've said that to provide 24-hour covers for example seven days a week from temperature service would cost a council over a quarter of a million pounds a year alone so i think you know there's a situation whereby you know a concern could be that um expectations of this bill will be high but the local authority's ability to deliver underground might be um much less so than we would like i can understand local authorities concern and that they are not able to put a figure on and activities that they might be expected to carry out but that's because um there is no as yet there is no national plan and there's no level of detail of what will be in that national plan and what authorities would be expected to have in their um own plan that would be at the direction of the government if the government had chosen for example that in 24-hour provision of interpreter services for access to a local authority service if they um set that out in the national planning expected all public authorities um i would expect the government to set out how they themselves intended to fund that service or um how they expected local authorities to make to meet that service that will be um up to the government of the day to fund their own policy priorities okay well thank you for that um are there any further points you want to raise a committee that maybe we haven't covered that you want to touch on i don't think so just to thank uh karate for the time this morning now i'd like to thank you very much for answering all our questions uh that being the end of this particular session just wonder if the committee would uh agree to consider um a submission to lead committee in private at our next meeting members have agreed thanks very much mark we'll now call our five minute a recess to our change over witnesses okay our next item of business is to take evidence on the air weapons and licensing scotland bills financial memorandum uh from scottish government bill team i'd like to welcome a to the meeting quentin fischer ian bruce keith main walter drummond murray and peter reed um good morning to you all and members of copies of the financial member random along with all written evidence received and before we go to questions from myself and then the rest of the committee i'd like to invite one and of our witnesses to make an opening statement who's drawn the short straw i have questions um thank you convener for introducing us and also thank you for inviting us today to to offer evidence to the committee um if i may do take the opportunity to offer a couple of brief and also broad observations the bill makes provision in respect of a number of new and existing licensing regimes any additional costs associated with the bill should be read against the wider cost to society of the activities that are regulated or indeed with the risks associated with the regulated behavior the bill has a number of purposes it aims to protect public safety by creating a new licensing regime for air weapons it aims to improve aspects of locally led alcohol and civic government licensing such as those of scrap metal dealers taxis and private hire cars in order to preserve public order safety to reduce crime and to advance public health it also gives local authorities the power to regulate sexual entertainment venues in the areas so that both performers and the customers benefit from a safe and regulated environment now the breadth of licensing regimes covered means that there's not an insignificant variation in the specific legislative detail and then therefore of course also variation in the financial impact in respect to each of these this variation i hope is reflected accurately in the financial memorandum now in keeping with current licensing practice the bulk of the costs associated with these licensing regimes is ultimately borne by the individuals and organizations that seek to carry out the licensed activity and then finally i believe it's worth noting that many of the costs identified particularly in respect of part three of the bill that's the civic licensing provisions are dependent upon future decisions that will be taken at local authority level local authority discretion is quite an important principle in all of this in these instances we have thought where possible to offer some indication of what those costs might be um we'll do our best today to ensure the answers that we provide will be helpful to you in informing your your consideration of the bill thank you okay well thank you very much for that brief opening statement um when i ask a question you can decide among yourselves who it would be the person most appropriate to answer and if there's a follow-up from another colleague i'm quite happy to uh to take that also okay well let's start i'm i suppose that would be logical to go through them part one uh two and three so let's start with the air weapons um uh i note that those who handle unlicensed air weapons will not be intended to compensation um uh obviously that will not uh whether it's i mean obviously those the bill will make it illegal to possess these but uh without having a good reason to but surely if you uh don't have any compensation that's gonna in itself uh suppress the number of people that are little to hand these in because a lot of people just think well it's at the back of my garage and i'm not going to go at the bottom of actually digging out you know to take down the local police station so what's thinking behind not compensating people even a token amount 20 pounds or something like to hand in these these weapons can i answer that simply by saying that this has been an issue that's been discussed quite a lot in the course of the three or four years we've been looking at these provisions and working with some of the stakeholders and i understand that it's a concern of people there have been occasions in the past where um changes in firearms law have led to a right prohibition or banning a certain types of guns so for example in in 1997 handguns were effectively prohibited and at that stage the the government of the day offered compensation um in the air weapons and licensing bill the government does not intend to to ban air guns as such what we're seeking to do is ensure that the people who have them are are the appropriate people they can they can have them safely etc but we're not banning guns so it's it's open to people to um if they no longer require their guns and our view is that there are enough a lot of guns as you see convener and the backs of garages and things over the course of this lots of people have said to me we had one of those when i was a kid it's in the loft or somewhere i haven't seen it for years a lot of low value old air weapons which have never been used are quite possibly broken or you know no longer in a fit state for use um it's open to people to hand those in to the police when we'll be putting arrangements in place for that to sell them on through private sales or through registered firearms dealers or to make other arrangements pass them on to other users or whatever um but ministers policy has always been that because this isn't a ban um and because we're talking broadly speaking about quite a high number of what we think are low value weapons that compensation would not be part of this uh these these arrangements no i was just thinking tomorrow as an incentive to get them out of circulation i mean clearly you know if you have to compensate people you get more circulation for people who no longer have an interest i use them than you would otherwise but move on because the issue and which which quentin touched on was that the new system will not be on julie burns and that of course is hotly contested the fm suggests that it costs to process the new weapons application around 85 pounds and 55 pounds it's a remarkably precise figure but one that's obviously contested by uh some of the people who've given out submissions for example the british association for shooting and conversation and conservation i'm going to try not to use acronyms where possible um said and i quote that the cost that will be associated with introduction or livestream will be very high and huge is disruptive to already all stretch firearms licensing administrations in scotland um and you know the scottish air rifle and pistol association talk about the fact that 98 of people um according to yourselves will be dealt with the need to further inquiry but they say that's incredibly misleading because half the folk who actually um use these weapons use them for an informal target shoot their own gardens which of course wouldn't isn't something we want to see because of the safety impact so they they basically um completely refute the kind of financial um assumptions that have been made by the bill and indeed them are suggesting that you know that the average cost will be significantly they're talking about almost 120 pounds i'm just wondering if you can if you can talk us through how you come to this nine to eight percent figure and indeed you know the applications not requiring um visits etc and also about how you come to this 85 pound 55 figure as well um if i can take the uh the 98 point first is is a figure which actually we've we arrived at in discussion with police scotland who will be the licensing authority and the air weapons provisions of and the whole process of licensing applying for and licensing people to heavier weapons is based around the existing firearms regime for high powered rifles shotguns etc um and the aim has been throughout this to provide a fairly light touch approach to air weapons recognizing that they're not generally as dangerous as more high-powered guns so a relatively high level uh sorry a relatively light touch system for licensing the the uh the weapons themselves and so in talking to police scotland we've discussed a lot about how they would actually do that um we accept that uh their point and it's our view that um there are some 60 to 65 000 existing certificate holders for other types of firearms and many many of them will also have air weapons and will be brought into the the new regime much of the the obviously the security issues have been looked at in licensing them and providing certificates for those holders so there's a large number of people will be taken out of the system already for those who are new applicants um it is a relatively light touch and police scotland have said to us that a disclosure style of arrangement where they will look at an applicant they will check basic criminal history systems etc should suffice for the majority of uh of applicants and that's that has been the view of police scotland throughout um they therefore believe that a two percent home visit full home visit and security check is the right level um obviously as a new system comes in that that may vary a little bit but but over the piece that's the view that we've taken and therefore we worked up the figures on that basis the figures themselves i agree i liked it again in the last couple of weeks obviously 85 pound 55 is is very accurate we used figures which have been used by colleagues down south for the the home office and from the association of chief police officers who have done a lot of work over the last couple of years in looking at the costs of processing existing firearms applications etc uh the and a lot of the figures we have adopted with their agreement for work that's been done for a working group in that context so that takes account of processing times the type of staff who are doing different bits of work etc and the calculations behind the 85 pound 55 pretty much reflect that work that's done um that has led home office to consult recently on an increase in in firearms fees more generally as a result of the work in that working group and therefore we've continued to adopt that um if i can say so british association basque sorry i will just fall into the acronyms uh and sarp and the scottish associate sorry the scottish air rifles and pistols association um are uh aware of that work and in fact basque were part of the working group that that agreed those figures in in the working group down south so um there are always differences in how we treat these and i understand basque's concerns and and the impact on their members but we think that there's a uh a generally accepted basis for the the background workings behind these figures which we will review as we become further into the year and start to look at fee levels as well so well imagine more than two percent of the population got a criminal record so i mean it seems a bit odd that it's such a a low low figure but i mean the the i mean it's quite burdensome though if it's even going to be 85 pounds you know i mean okay your law abiding citizen will grudgingly apply for that i imagine but um the folk who you're most worried about in terms of this legislation you know there's no going to bother are they i mean you know paying 85 quid to get a license you know all you're going to do is impact adversely on your shooting clubs and all and their members etc you know um there will be an impact on shooting clubs and members absolutely um that's part and parcel of the licensing system but but then again um existing firearms and shotgun owners will pay a certificate which is currently 50 pounds for five years and we haven't set a fee level yet for air weapons but um it's the fee reflects the work that has to be done by police scotland in order to ensure that the right people have air weapons and that therefore the the police can help to protect public safety through that way if it's 50 pounds 60 pounds 70 pound over five years that's a relatively small price when compared to membership of a club or the amount that somebody will pay for some other interest for example i accept what you say that there's going to be a a core of people who will just say we'll hide our guns we're not going to get involved in this this licensing system it's part and parcel of the implementation we have to make sure that we're getting the message out and there's provision in the financial memorandum for a media campaign and we have had the verbal agreement of the shooting organizations for example to help us get that message out but we need to get it out to the wider community to make sure that people know there's a requirement in future to license their guns if people choose not to license those weapons um then they are committing an offence and they will the police will deal with that appropriately and and as we go forward it will over time help the police to identify air weapons that are in circulation with people who shouldn't have them and and there are provisions elsewhere in the bill which will then allow for the courts to order forfeiture of those or to deal with them appropriately if there's half a million weapons in circulation and you're talking about between 10 and 30 000 applications i mean to me that means between 94 98 percent of people only going to bother getting them licensed now the uh sarpa um i've basically said that a more realistic license number between 100 150 000 um applications even then that'll be a maximum of 30 percent of people who appear to have these weapons so most people still you know blank the legislation um but those who do apply but the cost of this will be millions of pounds i mean how is this actually going to actually deliver on what the bill is actually proposing in terms of enhancing improved safety we're talking about only small minorities are people actually calling your own figures and i'm going to actually get these guns licensed um if i can see i can't remember the the paragraphs and the memorandum but what we've we've done is the 500 000 air weapons estimate is one that's generally accepted around the table of the working group that we've had as potentially the number of air weapons that have been out there um and are potentially out there in scotland in actual fact we expect a lot of them will simply be handed in because they're all broken unwanted a lot of them will be sold on um many people who own guns of any sort but air weapons and included will have a number of different guns possibly because they've upgraded over the years possibly because they do different types of shooting um and by the time that we come down through these assumptions um it's how we get to actually in in the financial memorandum potentially 40 000 existing firearms certificate holders will also have air weapons certificates in future um so the 20 000 estimate is brand new applicants to the system who have not got more powerful firearms but who will come in and and seek a certificate for the air weapon or multiple air weapons that they hold it will be one certificate and a person can hold one two or any number of your weapons on that certificate okay i'm just going to ask one more kind of question this year because obviously there's other parts of the bill and colleagues also want to come in um the fm states that the estimated maximum additional enforcement testing and reporting costs to be incurred by police scotland amount to 90 000 pounds per annum which is an estimated 500 cases per year 180 pounds a case um but however um you know the bsc questioned where the figure implied the police expect to tease 500 weapons the result of non-complies and asked how this figure compared with an estimated 5200 summary prosecutions quoted in the fm so there appears to be an anomaly there um again what we're looking at is is a difference between actually it's the line between the existing regime and the old regime uh sorry and the new regime um the 500 tests that that's in against police scotland costs um is an estimate based on the number of actual weapons which might have to be tested and they would be brand new tests in fact police scotland may well be finding and this is one of the the benefits of of the provisions in the bill may well be investigating um other crimes other complaints and and in the course of that uh find their weapons in the property or whatever um now in in the current regime they wouldn't be able to take them from from the point at which the bill provisions come into force the police would be able to seize them and test them um but as part and parcel that would be as part and parcel of another investigation so for example if they go into property because of a domestic complaint or for anti-social behavior or whatever there will already be a prosecution going on because of those other complaints and then alongside that if air weapons are seized there will be tests so the 500 tests are on potentially the number of air weapons which could be taken in those sort of investigations but they may only go become 50 to 100 prosecutions brand new prosecutions simply for a near weapons licensing offence there are already in the existing firearms legislation as well offences related to air weapons so for example if somebody fires an air weapon beyond the boundaries of their own premises or if somebody's uh carrying an air weapon in the street those are already offensive so what we're looking at is is in the licensing there will be a number of new licensing related offences that sit alongside existing investigations insist existing prosecutions okay and um i think that was the last one but i do want to just mention one other thing appeals how many appeals would you expect from people who've been refused licenses and what would be the cost of that appeals um i have to say i looked at the written evidence and we don't have uh in the financial memorandum at the moment a specific provision for appeals and i apologize i will look at that again i think on the basis of criminal prosecutions and we expect a relatively small number of brand new ones at the time the thinking was that will lead to a very low number of uh potential criminal appeals the other discussion at the time i understand the point is being made by the british association that there will be potentially a number of appeals against um refusal of a certificate or against revocations um i have to say in the existing firearms regime the the people who apply uh generally are people who are known in the system and are known to the police and are existing firearms owners there's a very small number of refusals i mean around about one percent of applications are refused in each year on the the last statistics we have and as our system rolls out i think that will be uh you know something that will look to the police will provide advice it's very difficult to estimate the number of appeals at the moment but um it's something that we will have to be aware of and perhaps revisit i'm also conscious too there's a whole new sheriff appeals court system coming into play with the new legislation last year so we have to look at how those will work through the system as well so difficult to say at the moment i'm clearly ministers and and officials are hoping that we're not uh looking at a lot of appeals and because of a light touch system we don't expect it to be a lot okay thank you i'm just going to move on now to alcohol licensing i'm going to spend less time in the next two sections and at least because i've taken 20 minutes and as i said i want colleagues to come in but just um in terms of alcoholics in western martinshire council and their evidence has said that uh the legislation sets a maximum fee which license bulls can charge but even though ours is charging the maximum fee we incur an annual deficit of almost 89 000 pounds and glasgow city council said it should be noted it's difficult if not impossible for bodies to print all these fees to account the scottish government's proposals and uh sith lannister says the council doesn't currently have the funding in place to meet these i mean surely this all this is this regime is going to add significant burdens to local authorities the proposals within the bill are a broad mix and they're really derived from suggestions that we're floating about among stakeholders and where came from came from the consultation exercise the idea was to finesse and improve the existing legislation not to him you know the idea is not to impose substantial additional burdens on local licensing boards on that basis on that that basis we felt it was reasonable to say that if we felt that the cost would be broadly neutral in relation to the fees we are there was detailed work carried out on reviewing the fees and although we would be sympathetic to the idea of amending the existing limits on the licensing fees but on having carried out the work we got very good scant response from the local authorities and we really felt that we didn't at that time have enough information of which debates uh increase on the fees level however by increasing by inserting a statutory duty on local authorities to re to report on the income and expenditure that will give us a basis to understand all the local authorities of course and expenditure and in time to raise fees if if it is felt to be appropriate certainly one of the main findings coming out of the fees review was that the current occasional license fee of 10 pounds was felt to be insufficient and certainly that's something that we feel that we could move on without extensive further work and it's something we'd be looking to move on fairly soon to improve to increase the occasional license fee okay thank you for that i mean kosla um looking at the actual reports i'm going to be produced have said that there are concerns that the introduction of a city for boards to publish a financial report may be administering difficult for local authorities depending on current accounting procedures causa recognizes that this increases transparency and provide evidence for any uh future fee it increases but sec going uh to add the the those particular concerns about the the fee for occasional licenses not being reviewed and that the current fee was already insufficient to cover the cost of work involved in processing applications yes the current fee is 10 pounds it's set within secondary legislation so that is something that we could increase out with the scope of this bill right okay thank you for that and just one final uh a bit some kind of skimming says because i want all your colleagues in but just to touch on civic licensing and um the fm states that bill will give local authorities a power to refuse to grant private uh higher car licenses on the grounds of over provision but the scottish taxi federation said that the financial member adam had i quote got things badly wrong and questioned how the financial memorandum's estimate had been reached stating that no suitable methodology or measuring tool existed at present and indeed they wanted difficult if not impossible to survive such a tool so i'm just wondering um how you actually have reached these kind of estimates there is at the moment at the moment there is no equivalent test within private hire cars there is a similar test in relation to taxis which relates to unmet demand but that is a different test we took the figure from napier university that quoted i think it was fifteen thousand fifteen to twenty thousand so it is in the financial memo that quoted an indicative level for the unmet demand test and quoted that as an example in practice it's a completely new test we don't know how we haven't devised the procedure yet for what would be appropriate for it i think the point raised by scotch taxi federation and others that that figure of around 15 000 might be on the low side is possibly the case for a large authority like edinburgh or glasgow however those are quite exceptional a lot of local licensing authorities have very small numbers of private hires and worthy whether to carry out an unmate demand test then the figure would probably be a lot lower we'd certainly be happy to work with local local licensing authorities and relevant stakeholders to work together in developing an appropriate methodology for testing this okay thank you and i did say i was gonna open up the session but none of my colleagues have indicated that they want to ask any questions as yet i hope that they will so i'll ask you one where they all get themselves psyched up for that um which is with regard to um the fact that the fm notes that some local authorities might receive no fee income from sexual entertainment venues for example where none exists in a local authority area but they could incur tens of thousands of pounds of legal fees should an operator charge the decision not to grant a license yeah we do recognize the risk within the financial memorandum but the precise costs of how much challenge could cost are very hard to pin down um in response in respect of a low level um challenge and a civic license for example a private hire car driver license going to the sheriff court uh glasgow council estimated that between two and a half and three thousand pounds if something goes all the way to inner house the quarter session then of course the costs are very substantial and there's no getting away from that although hard to be precise um within the 1982 act there was a responsibility for local authorities to ensure that the cost of licensing and totality does um um is covered by the licensing fees but ultimately on a very expensive cases for the local authorities to take a judgement whether they think it's worth pursuing whether the public benefit that is um that they're trying to achieve would warrant pursuing all the way through the courts and to incur that expenditure okay thank you for that my colleagues now do um which ask questions first one will be marked to be followed by richard thank you convener um a number of points during the financial memorandum uh various organizations have highlighted concerns around costs of appeals occurs from the british association of shooting and conservation in relation to air rifles from the scottish taxi federation in relation to taxes uh and from various licensing boards in relation to some of the new changes particularly around fit and proper person um and there are concerns that cost of appeals have not been properly factored in in these areas i wonder if you'd like to respond to that sorry well if i can um i mean that's a question that covers of course all the licensing regimes so i will deal with it in a perfectly broad fashion if i may um if we are talking about appeals in respect of decisions taken by either the local authorities or indeed the police in respect of whether or not to grant an application or whether to revoke an application um it strikes me that it's right that well i should probably say the way to eliminate the possibility of an appeal would be to have no appeal system but i don't think anyone's suggesting that so the moment we do have an appeal system of course the possibility of appeal arises the likelihood of an appeal um largely will depend on the quality of the decision taken amongst other things it also depends of course on the mindset and the positioning of the of the potential appellant so it's one of the situations where where yes the moment we have an appeal system in place and we do for all of the licensing decisions um the possibility of an appeal exists the however the likelihood of that appeal um is a different factor and it's it's a factor that has it's a decision it's something that can only really be ascertained on a case-by-case basis um as to how likely that is um and and what indeed the costs of that will be i don't know if any of my colleagues want to say anything about the specific regimes but just point that mr gibson made and there are of course only about 17 to 20 sexual entertainment venues within scotland that of itself limits the scope for appeals that um it could be taken through the courts well will you say that um in relation to sexual entertainment venues but of course in the in the responses that we've received uh the point is raised that obviously there may be appeals against refusals um so obviously um while there are a small number in existence there will of course be potential applications which prior to the legislation would have gone through the alcohol licensing or other route but this creation of a new licensing regime would potentially lead to refusals under that regime and thus appeals to those refusals so while i think basing on a small number in existence perhaps doesn't reflect what may happen and i think that's the point that licensing boards are attempting to get across and i realize you know the the it's they've got to put an exact figure on it but of course the point of a financial memorandum is it's supposed to deal also in best estimates so when looking at this did you look at um the scenario around applications that were refused rather than simply those that are already in existence we're perfectly correct there would be applications on top of that but the point is still that um lap dancing clubs have been in existence in scotland for perhaps 15 years and still after that period we've only reached the point of about 20 so there is it is reasonable to infer that the demand is limited so there will be applications but it's not going to be an enormous number um and in terms of the costs of appeals it just depends how far they are prosecuted through the courts going to the in-house quarter session will be expensive um but we never had a better estimate of how much it would exactly cost than the figure of tens of thousands there's a feeling uh in relation to the um introduction of the the fit and proper person criteria in relation to personal licenses that the definition is uh vague and could lead to a number of challenges on the back of it glasgow city council licensing board for example say the current drafting of the bill creates uncertainty as to the scope of the test and unless corrected will expose boards to increase litigation costs until case law provides necessary judicial clarity is this something that you have had raised with you directly around the fit and proper person test and is it something that the government intends to look at as it moves forward with the legislation proper test was has been very carefully drafted there are existing fit and proper tests in other pieces of legislation that the local authorities will be quite familiar with so it's not a completely new concept it has also been framed in that it has reference to the overarching licensing objectives for the the licensing scotland act those are broadly broadly framed and ensure that the local authorities they provide certain constraints on the decision that the local authority can make but where where the local authorities to ignore those constraints they would still be ground by they would still be bound by the overall scope of the bill you know the breakthrough decision that have been referred that is frequently referenced uh related to a board making decisions out that beyond really the scope of the bill and you know by reference by referencing the fit and proper test to the overarching licensing objectives it ensures that the you know the decisions made by the board are constrained within the purpose of the scope of the bill where the scope of the act sorry okay um and just finally on the issue around um public entertainment venues the uh the financial memorandum states that the abolition of theater licences would represent a decrease in regulatory burden overall but evidence to the committee from the freezing gallery council says those authorities not currently licensing places of public entertainment which need to undertake a substantial and detailed process to assess whether there is a need to license theaters as places of public entertainment and further states that those that already do would incur significant press publication fees for statutory notices if the authority's resolution is to be widened to include theaters and glasgow city council has urged the government to introduce provisions to allow the necessary amendment to the resolution to be expedited which it has suggested would reduce the costs to theater owners etc and so on the one hand we're being told there's a reduction in the burden on the other hand we're being given evidence that would suggest that there will be an increase in terms of the costs in some places and wonder if somebody could perhaps reconcile that i think the point about decreased regulatory burden was actually upon the theaters themselves and some of whom may have to have a theater license and a public entertainment license at the moment whereas this would be a more streamlined system um that would allow a theater for example to apply for the one license um in the longer term we'd also expect having to operate a single regime rather than two would have benefits for local authorities um in terms of the expediting the nine month period between a local authority passing a resolution and actually coming into force i think it's reasonable that there has to be some period between an authority announcing that something needs to be licensed and actually coming into force so people got time to apply for licenses and to get ready for it the current period is nine months which we're not especially wedded to but it's hard to see how it could be less than a matter of several months um but i should also have pointed out the public entertainment license is very wide it's very flexible so the local authority could decide to license and many of them do billiard halls for example or snooker clubs um and from the point of making that decision to actually coming into force you do need a period of months uh the requirements of the 1982 act are that an authority published a resolution invite comments and then consider those representations there is a degree of work obviously to reach the point of which a draft resolution can be published but that amount of work should be proportionate to what it's been proposed to do and in this case would expect there'll be a strong assumption that theaters should fall into public entertainment licensing they are already licensed and they have largely the same characteristics as many of the other forms of entertainment which are licensed as public entertainment in these circumstances we wouldn't expect a substantial and detailed process to actually be required and finally on the fees um yeah we do recognize that publishing the sort of classified advert that is required under the act just to notify people of a change in resolution has a cost uh glasgow estimated that cost of an advert would range from 300 to 550 pounds the last two having been 340 and 522 so it is a cost of a few hundred pounds um but it's not an ongoing cost i think it'll probably have to be incurred twice um during the process of changing a public entertainment resolution i was just going to ask that i mean i'm i'm by no means an expert so this is very much the laddie question but presumably these adverts do not need to be for each individual license and can be applied collectively um so for example if a number of venues are going through this licensing process they can all be captured within the one advert advertisement which obviously reduces the cost burden yeah i mean the cost is actually being referred to here is that when a local authority determines to change the public entertainment resolution i.e saying what it is we're going to license they have to advertise that fact um and invite comments and they have to put another advert in at the end of that process saying this is what the final resolution looks like so it's not about individual applications it's about totality of what's changing within a local authority area on their members because of the government's comments that additional costs should be charged to license fees um now in paragraph 170 you've given an indicative value of the cost to um drivers vehicles and booking officers from the with examples of fee set out and five licensing uh authorities um do those examples you're given include um the addition any additional costs you expect to see from the implementation of this legislation or do the comments from the taxi federation reflect the fact that they think that these costs will go unlikely to increase in the future and because of an additional cost that could be through appeals and and other impacts of legislation the financial statement includes uh reports actual license fees that were being charged at the time at the time at the time what assessment have you made then of what impact this legislation might have in terms of additional and uh increased costs for for license fees for for taxi drivers and it's very difficult to gauge because an awful lot uh that so the the over profession in relation to private hire is the discretionary part it's up to local authorities whether they wish to introduce it although when we consulted that did seem to be broad support for it certainly in the call for evidence there doesn't seem to be any doesn't seem to be a lot of indication that local authorities are keen to use this use this additional part if if local authorities decide not to use it there will be no additional cost okay and finally then in terms of that um additional cost if if it is the fact that an authority applies that power um the tax federation which should be clear whether the cost of the administering or prison or the overprovision section and the possible court challenges will only be charged back to licensees for private hire car operators or is that to the regime in general i i have to look at the legislation i can't i'm not a lawyer so i can't really offer a legal view it see it doesn't seem to me to be prescriptive as to how the local authority would allocate that as to whether it was within just the private hire element or within the of the taxi element at the moment there is an unmet demand test in relation to taxes i i'm not sure whether local authorities restrict the cost of that to their existing taxes or whether they they spread that across a private higher i suspect it's really an issue for the local authority to decide on for themselves thank you very much there appears to be no further questions from committee i'm just wondering if there's any further points that you would like to put to committee before we wind up the session thank you very much um for hearing our evidence today um if there's anything um further that we can help you with um please let us know and we would happily provide further comment okay thank you very much for that that being the end of the public part of today's deliberations i'm going to call i'm going to call a small recess before i do i just want to get the agreement of committee that we will look at this report in private at the next session thank you very much okay thank you