Bankruptcy and debt advice review: consultation

2. Consultation Arrangements

Changes introduced by Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Act 2014

The Scottish Government seeks your views on the effectiveness and operational impact of the reforms introduced with effect from 1 April 2015 through the Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Act 2014. Your responses to this consultation should be submitted by 11 February 2020.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation hub, Citizen Space (http://consult.gov.scot). You can access and respond to this consultation online at https://consult.gov.scot/accountant-in-bankruptcy/review-of-changes-bankruptcy-and-debt-advice/. You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date of 11 February 2020.

If you are unable to respond using our consultation hub, please complete the Respondent Information Form to:

A full list of consultation questions is contained in section 5 of this document.

We would be grateful if you would use the consultation questionnaire provided or clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to, as this will aid collation of the responses received.

This consultation, and all other Scottish Government consultation exercises can be viewed online on the consultation pages of the Scottish Government web-site at http://gov.scot/consultations.

The Scottish Government has an email alert system for consultations - https://register.scotland.gov.uk/Subscribe/step1. This system allows stakeholders to register and receive updates of all new consultations and is designed to highlight new publications at the earliest opportunity. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

If you respond using the consultation hub, you will be directed to the About You page before submitting your response. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are content for your response to be published. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form included in this document.

To find out how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy policy: /privacy/

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public at http://consult.gov.scot. If you use the consultation hub to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us. Responses will be published where we have been given permission to do so. An analysis report will also be made available.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the contact address above or at AiB_Policy_Development_Enquiries@gov.scot.

Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policymaking process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online: http://consult.gov.scot. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review
• inform the development of a particular policy
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.

Implementation of any reforms that may arise following consideration and analysis of the responses to this consultation may involve amendment to primary legislation. These will be subject to Parliamentary process and identification of an appropriate opportunity to bring forward a Bill. There may also be opportunities to address the issues raised in secondary legislation and these may be enacted over a shorter timescale. The consultation response will provide more detail on these matters.