Commissions and commissioners: executive summary - easy read

Thoughts on these powers that Commissions and Commissioners have

Commissions and Commissioners thought it was important to have their powers set out in law.

It should be easy to understand what powers each Commission or Commissioner has.

Some of the people interviewed said they only used these legal powers as a last resort.

They said it was always best to have conversations and discussions with people and organisations before using their powers.

Some people said they didn't like using legal powers a lot because it could be seen as punishing people.

Using legal powers can be very expensive.

Most people said the most important part of their work was making sure that organisations knew what the best ways to support people are.

However many people said that their organisations did not have enough money to do this as much as they wanted.

Commissioners said that these conversations helped the rest of their work.

Most commissions worked to help write government policy and review it afterwards.

Some people said policy work could be harder and take longer to do than their other work.

Some commissioners liked to work closely with the Scottish Government on policy but others liked to make sure that they stayed separate.

Some commissioners were unhappy because they did not have the power to take people and organisations to court.

Some said that they tried not to do too many investigations because they are expensive.

Some people said that they would often have to work with other commissions when they were doing investigations.