Agenda Item 5 Shetland Islands Council Shetland Islands Council 16 December 2015 Consultation on Provisions for a Future Islands Bill – Council response CE-05-15-F Report Presented by Chief Executive Chief Executive’s Department 1.0 Introduction 1.1 This report sets out a draft response to the current consultation exercise being undertaken by Scottish Government on provisions for a future Islands Bill. 1.2 The Council’s response has been developed through discussions with Members, senior officers and stakeholders over the past few weeks. The draft response is now being presented for formal agreement, ahead of submission to meet the consultation deadline of 23 December. 2.0 Decision Required That the Council RESOLVE to: 2.1 APPROVE the draft consultation response (attached as Appendix 1) and delegate authority to the Chief Executive, or designate, to submit the final version by the deadline of 23 December. 3.0 Detail 3.1 The Council has been a member of the Our Islands Our Future (OIOF) campaign over the past two and a half years. As part of its response to the OIOF campaign, the Scottish Government published ‘Empowering Scotland’s Island Communities’ in June 2014, which included reference to an Islands Act. The current consultation is therefore a direct result of that lobbying process. 3.2 Over the past few weeks opportunities have been created for Members, senior officers and external stakeholders to discuss the consultation exercise. The outputs from those events have been used to shape the draft attached to this report. 3.3 As a member of the Shetland Partnership, the Council will also contribute to the response due to be sent by the Partnership Board. Recognising the fact this is an open consultation, it is expected that individuals and organisations across Shetland will be submitting their own responses. 3.4 The OIOF campaign will make a joint islands councils submission. It will draw on the submissions made individually by the three Councils and relevant points put forward by the campaign over the past two years. 3.5 The Council continues to be involved in OIOF and it is expected the outputs from this consultation will be discussed at the last meeting of the Island Areas Ministerial Working Group meeting next year. Members are kept up to date on the OIOF campaign through updates in their monthly newsletters and meetings of the Constitutional Reform Project Sounding Board, which are timed to coincide with key lobbying points with UK and Scottish Governments. 3.6 The information provided through this exercise will be analysed early next year, but it’s expected that detailed work on a Bill will only be carried out following the May election to the Scottish Parliament, next year. As the Bill progresses through its various stages there will be further opportunities for comment to be made. 4.0 Implications Strategic 4.1 Delivery on corporate priorities This report makes a contribution to a number of the outcomes set out in ‘Our Plan’ 2016-20. Most notably is the desire to have made “Shetland’s voice heard, with regular and meaningful lobbying of Scottish and UK governments and EU bodies on important issues affecting the islands”. 4.2 Community/Stakeholder Issues As would be expected, the Scottish Government has promoted its consultation process on a number of occasions since it went live at the end of September. Additionally, the Council has sought to raise local awareness by hosting the link to the consultation document on the front page of the Council’s website, directly contacting organisations and issuing a press release. The link was sent to all Community Council Chairs and Clerks after the consultation was intimated to the Association of Shetland Community Councils in early October. Members have also raised the matter at several Community Council meetings. The draft response was developed with input from a wider stakeholder meeting involving community planning partners and representatives from industry. As noted, all Members, as representatives of their communities, have also had the opportunity to put forward views over the past few weeks. 4.3 Policy and/or Delegated Authority Part A of the Council’s Constitution specifies that the Council has responsibility for “approving, adopting or amending the Policy Framework and any plan, policy or strategy which is contained within the Policy Framework”. A decision is being sought from the Council as a future Islands Bill has the potential to impact on key strategy. 4.4 Risk Management The point has been made in the draft response that a risk-based and proportionate approach should be adopted when designing Islands Proofing. The Council, in responding to the exercise, is seeking at this stage to help shape the content of the eventual Bill. It is anticipated communities and individuals across the islands will also make use of the opportunity to respond by the deadline of 23 December. 4.5 Equality, Health and Human Rights – The response highlights a number of equalities issues that Islands Proofing could help to tackle. 4.6 Environmental – There are no immediate impacts arising from this report. Resources 4.7 Financial Although there are no immediate financial implications arising from this report, the draft response does highlight a number of resource-related points, particularly the requirement for any new or additional powers to come with the resources necessary to allow the Council to use them effectively. 4.8 Legal – There are no immediate impacts arising from this report. 4.9 Human Resources – There are no immediate impacts arising from this report. 4.10 Asset and Properties – There are no immediate impacts arising from this report. 5.0 Conclusions 5.1 This report has introduced a draft response to the current Scottish Government consultation on a future Islands Bill. It picks up on many of the points expressed during consultation in the past few weeks. Members are asked to approve the draft response and delegate authority to the Chief Executive to submit the final draft to Scottish Government before the 23rd December deadline. For further information please contact: Mark Boden – Chief Executive 01595 744501 [email protected] Peter Peterson – Executive Manager 01595 744538 [email protected] 6 December 2015 END APPENDIX 1 Consultation on a future Islands Bill Shetland Islands Council response Question 1 Is the concept of ‘Island-Proofing’ something the Scottish Government should consider placing in legislation through the proposed Islands Bill? Yes Please explain the reasons for your answer. 1.1 The need for islands proofing Islands proofing is a concept that was put forward by the Our Islands Our Future (OIOF) campaign during meetings of the Island Areas Ministerial Working Group in 2013. The motivation for doing so came from a growing awareness that Government policy and the operations of public bodies can fail to take into account the circumstances and unique needs of island communities. We felt that the concept of islands proofing offered the potential to make a difference. Islands proofing is as much about a different way of working as the development of specific processes. It requires widespread awareness of island issues amongst policy makers and public bodies. That heightened awareness must influence the design of policy and legislation at the earliest possible stage, so that any potentially unintended negative consequences are identified and mitigating measures built in. The OIOF campaign put forward a detailed case for islands proofing and we were encouraged to see Government acknowledge many of our points in Empowering Scotland’s Island Communities. It is recognised that many of our challenges are also experienced in remote and rural Scotland and we would not wish to enter into a competition to prove “which area is worst off”. However, reflecting the national nature of this consultation exercise and taking account of the many challenges that puts distant small communities made up entirely of islands at the extreme end of public service delivery, we feel it is important that we set out why we think islands proofing is such a key piece of policy for an archipelago like Shetland. 1.1.1 Helping to address islands social challenges Higher cost of living. The Minimum Income Standard for Remote Rural Scotland identified that the budgets households in remote rural Scotland need to achieve a minimum acceptable living standard are typically 10% to 40% higher than elsewhere in the UK. The minimum income standard of living in Britain today includes food, clothes and shelter, but it also includes having what you need in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate in society. It’s about “living” not “surviving” and about “needs” not “wants”. This is particularly important in our context, where social isolation and loneliness can be very acute and particularly challenging to address. The minimum living costs of a household in Lerwick are estimated to be one-third higher than those of a household in a UK city for a working age household and one quarter higher for a pensioner. These are higher for the most remote parts of Shetland. Key factors contributing to higher cost of living across remote rural Scotland include: x Higher prices for food, clothes and household goods; x Much higher household fuel bills, influenced by climate and fuel sources; x The longer distances that people have to routinely travel, particularly to work. The research also found that (based on 2013 figures) the weekly household fuel bill for a single adult of working age was £12.36 in a rural English Town (social housing), compared to £22.99 in a Northern Isles town (e.g. Lerwick) and £35.13 in a Northern Isles remote small settlement. Further information and analysis is available through the work of Shetland’s ‘Commission on Tackling Inequalities’: Distance from mainland.