Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator (Duty to Publish Certain Information) Regulations 2024 and Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator (Miscellaneous Listings) Order 2024: Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment

Consultation

Within Government

The following Scottish Government Directorates have been involved in the development of the regulations:

• Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Economy
• Directorate for Constitution
• Directorate for Chief Economist
• Directorate for Energy and Climate Change
• Directorate for Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights
• Directorate for Local Government and Communities
• Directorate for Legal Services (Solicitor to the Scottish Government)
• Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate

This dialogue has contributed to policy development. For example, officials considered whether the Adjudicator needed to be added to the Scottish procurement legislation, however following discussion it was identified that the Adjudicator would be classed as a contracting authority, so no changes were needed to public procurement legislation – they were already covered by the legislation.

We have also discussed the proposals with the National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Freedom of Information Commissioner.

Public Consultation

Given the technical nature of this instrument a formal consultation exercise was not

undertaken. An informal and short consultation took place with the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) and the Scottish Beer and Pub Association (SBPA) on the draft SSI in 2023. The SLTA confirmed that they were content with the draft SSI and no reply was received from the SBPA. The draft laying and coming into force dates have since been changed, due to a court action brought forward by initially three and then two pub-owning businesses.

The Scottish Government also informally discussed the proposals with the National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Information Commissioner, both of which were supportive of the proposals.

Substantial formal and informal consultation has taken place on the implementation of the Act more generally, specifically on the development of the Scottish Pubs Code.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has also been consulted on the proposed package of secondary legislation to implement the Tied Pubs (Scotland) Act as required by Article 36(4) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation. They highlighted a few data protection considerations and advised that the Adjudicator and/or the Scottish Pubs Code will want to include some early thinking about:

• retention – how long will personal data be stored;
• the fields of personal data that might be involved to ensure that it is kept to the minimum necessary for the required purpose.

Business

As noted above, we have not undertaken a formal consultation on the two instruments due to their technical nature. However, we have shared the drafts with key representative organisations, i.e. the SLTA and the SBPA. Businesses have taken part in the public consultations and workshops on the wider Scottish Pubs Code and corresponding fees and financial penalties regulations.