Background
3.The Act seeks to support the aims set out in the Policy Memorandum through the extension of current environmental protection measures to additional plans, programmes and strategies. Through the Act the aim is to improve protection of the environment, to improve public decision making and in particular to implement the commitment in ‘A Partnership for a Better Scotland’ to legislate to introduce Strategic Environmental Assessment across the range of all new strategies, plans and programmes developed by the public sector in Scotland. The use of primary legislation has allowed the extension of scope and wider matters to be subject to extensive public consultation and for the importance of the subject matter to be properly reflected. The term Strategic Environmental Assessment is sometimes shortened to SEA or to environmental assessment. The Explanatory Note uses the term environmental assessment.