Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill: consultation

Annex H: On whom duties should apply

It is important to ensure that all public authorities in Scotland – including the Scottish Government – carry out any strengthened duties.

Explicitly including Scottish Ministers under any duties may help to clarify that a wellbeing and sustainable development approach should be used by all public authorities in Scotland to shape their policy development and delivery. This would help to re-establish the National Performance Framework as a common framework across Scotland. The development of the Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill also presents an opportunity to review which other bodies should be more clearly included under the duties, to ensure this is up to date and comprehensive.

The Community Empowerment Act 2015 currently defines who is covered by the duties in broad terms as: ‘a cross-border public authority; any other Scottish public authority; any other person carrying out functions of a public nature’.

In terms of its legal scope, this may already be sufficient, but the Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill is an opportunity to consider whether this needs to be stated more clearly to explicitly include Scottish Ministers under these duties. Currently, the Scottish Ministers are required to set out and review the National Outcomes but are not explicitly mentioned under the “have regard to” duty.

Before the introduction of the Bill, we will continue to engage widely on the issue of how the Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill duties can build upon the current National Performance Framework and not add an unnecessary administrative burden or extra reporting requirement, to ensure the Bill reflects the needs of public bodies and local authorities.

We are therefore seeking your views on the range and type of organisations that any duty should apply to.