63.This section allows the Lord President to review the performance of a category 1 or category 2 regulator on the Lord President’s own initiative or if requested to do so by the Scottish Parliament, the independent advisory panel of the Committee or Consumer Scotland. A request may be made only where the requesting body is concerned that the regulator is failing to exercise its regulatory functions in a manner that is compatible with the regulatory objectives or failing to comply with the requirements imposed on the regulator under the Act or any other enactment. The requester must give notice to the regulator of its reasons for proposing to make the request.
64.When a review is being carried out it is to be done with a focus on, but not limited to, the regulator’s compliance with the regulatory objectives, the exercise of its regulatory functions, the operation of its regulatory committee (where relevant) or other internal governance arrangements and its compliance with any measures applied to it under section 19 of the Act or any direction from the Commission under the 2007 Act.
65.The Lord President may request information from a regulator in connection with an existing review relating to that regulator. If the regulator fails to provide the information, the Lord President may add such failure to the existing review (but the regulator must be given a chance to respond to this). If the Lord President thinks that any person other than a regulator holds information relating to the review, the Lord President may request the information from them (see subsection (9)). When conducting the review, the Lord President may consult such persons or bodies as they consider appropriate.
66.Following any such review, the Lord President must prepare and publish a report detailing the findings and any measures the Lord President intends to take under section 19. If a request is received and the Lord President decides not to conduct a review, the Lord President must give the requester the reasons for that, in writing.
Background Part 1 – Regulatory Framework Powers of the Lord President in relation to regulators Section 18 – Review of regulatory performance by the Lord President