Guidance and reporting
Section 11 – Guidance about section 7 duty
26.Subsection (1) of this section gives the Scottish Ministers a power to issue guidance about the duty imposed by section 7 and places a corresponding obligation on relevant authorities to have regard to any such guidance in their decision-making.
27.Subsection (2) requires the Scottish Ministers to consult the local authorities listed in the schedule to the Act, persons representing the interests of island communities and other persons they consider appropriate before they issue any such guidance. The consultation requirements here mirror those in section 4(1) of the Act for the preparation of the national islands plan.
Section 12 – Reporting regarding section 7 duty
28.Subsections (1) and (2) of this section require relevant authorities to include information about how they have complied with the section 7 duty to have regard to island communities, where that duty has applied to them in their chosen reporting period of up to a year: that is information about the island communities impact assessments which they have carried out, and information about any other steps which they have taken to comply with the section 7 duty (see the explanation of section 10 above ).
29.Subsection (3) leaves it to an individual relevant authority to determine how it publishes this information. It is envisaged that in most cases publication will be in an authority’s annual report, and so that is mentioned here as an illustrative example.
30.Subsection (4) provides that, as the Scottish Ministers will report on the duty imposed by section 7 (and also the duty imposed by section 13) as part of their report on the national islands plan under section 5, there is no requirement for them to report separately under this section.