Transport (Scotland) Act 2001

6 Making of quality partnership scheme

(1) If, having complied with section 5 of this Act, a local transport authority decide that it is appropriate to make a quality partnership scheme, they may make it—

(a) in the form proposed; or

(b) subject to such modifications as they may specify.

(2) A scheme shall set out—

(a) the specified facilities to be provided by the authority;

(b) the specified standard of local services which operators are required to undertake to provide;

(c) the date on which it shall come into operation;

(d) the period (being a period of more than three, but not more than seven, years) for which it shall remain in operation; and

(e) procedures for determining any dispute arising in relation to the scheme between the authority and any operator of local services who has undertaken to provide such services under the scheme.

(3) A scheme may provide that—

(a) local services specified in it; or

(b) local services of a class specified in it,

are to be excluded from the scheme, subject to such conditions (if any) as may be specified in it.

(4) Any date specified by virtue of subsection (2)(c) above shall not be earlier than the date by which, in the opinion of the authority, it will be reasonably practicable—

(a) for the authority to provide the specified facilities in accordance with the scheme; and

(b) for operators of local services to provide the specified standard of services in accordance with the scheme,

and, in any event, shall not be earlier than whichever is the later of the dates mentioned in subsection (5) below.

(5) The dates referred to in subsection (4) above are—

(a) the date 3 months after that on which the scheme is made; and

(b) the date 3 months after that on which any traffic regulation order required for the provision of any of the specified facilities is made (or, if more than one such order is required for that purpose, the date on which the last of them is made).

(6) Not later than 14 days after the date on which a scheme is made, the authority shall give notice—

(a) in at least one local newspaper circulating in the area to which the scheme relates;

(b) to all operators of local services who are, in the opinion of the authority, likely to be affected by the scheme; and

(c) to the traffic commissioner.

(7) The notice shall—

(a) set out the scheme; or

(b) state where, in what form, and at what times, the scheme may be inspected,

and, if the scheme made is a modified version of that proposed, state that fact.