Duty to provide advice and assistance
9.—(1) A Scottish public authority shall provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect the authority to do so, to applicants and prospective applicants.
(2) Where a request has been formulated in too general a manner, the authority shall–
(a)ask the applicant as soon as possible, and in any event no later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of request, to provide more particulars in relation to the request; and
(b)assist the applicant in providing those particulars.
(3) To the extent that a Scottish public authority conforms to a code of practice under regulation 18 in relation to the provision of advice and assistance in a particular case, it shall be taken to have complied with the duty imposed by paragraph (1) in relation to that case.
(4) In any case to which paragraph (2) applies, the date on which the further particulars are received by the authority shall be treated as the date of the request for the purposes of regulations 5(2)(a), 6(2)(a) and 13(a) and any period within which the authority is required to respond to that request by these Regulations shall begin on the day following that date.