19 January, 2017 - 11:33

Yesterday MSPs voted to oppose the Scottish Government's plans to abolish the board of Highlands and Islands enterprise.

Andy asked 3 critical questions of the Government, these are below along with the Minister's response.

1.Can the Cabinet Secretary explain how scrapping the board and amalgamating it with other agencies will ensure a continued focus on the Highlands and Islands?

2.Can he tell me how he proposes to bring forward his proposed changes? Does he plan to introduce primary legislation to enact the changes, or does he intend using the Order-making powers in Part 2 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 as they apply to Schedule 5 bodies?

3.The third and crucial question, however, is around status. The Cabinet Secretary told the Economy Committee on 20 December 2016 that in relation to SE and HI “there will be no change to their status”
But status is an ambiguous term. The acid test is (and this was the scenario I put to Mr Brown in December), if, after the reforms, HIE could take SE to court over, for example a disputed liability over property on the Isle of Arran? In other words will HIE retain its legal personality after the reforms?

Keith Brown responded:

‘It is Andy Wightman. He referred to the Government amalgamating the board with other agencies, but I confirm that the agencies will not be amalgamated. He also raised a question about the future process. As I said at committee, that will depend on the outcome of the governance review, which will help to determine the remit and the nature of the board and thus determine the process that follows. I will come back to Mr Wightman on the point about legal personality.’

Link to official report: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusine…/report.aspx…