This Order provides for the establishment of the Scottish dog control database which is to be created by the Improvement Service under section 8(1)(a) and 8(2) of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the Act”). The Improvement Service is a company limited by guarantee whose members are Scottish local authorities, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE). It acts as the national improvement organisation for Local Government in Scotland.

The Order appoints the Improvement Service as the database operator under section 8(1)(b) of the Act, and confers functions on the database operator in relation to the database. It limits the categories of persons who may be permitted by the database operator to make, alter or delete entries in the database or to view the database. A local authority which has served a dog control notice (a “notice”) is placed under duties to ensure that information of a type specified in the Order is included in the database. This applies to information which it holds relating to notices served before the coming into force of this Order, although under articles 4(2) and 5 information relating to a notice is not to be entered/retained on the database more than two years after the discharge of the notice. Where the notice is appealed under section 3 of the Act and is discharged on appeal, information relating to that notice if entered in the database is to be removed as soon as practicable under article 5(1).

Article 6 enables a local authority to disclose information to the database operator, and to share information entered in the database with other local authorities, the police and the Scottish Ministers.

A data protection impact assessment has been prepared and placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies can be obtained from Adam Sinclair, GW.14, St Andrew’s House, Regent Road, Edinburgh EH1 3DG, e-mail adam.sinclair@gov.scot.