COMMENTARY ON SECTIONS Section 15: Exercise of functions: general
30.This section ensures that the Board takes into account the recommendations made in the Panel’s report (see, in particular, recommendations 11, 14 and 56) and applies them, unless there is good reason not to, when it first makes a determination to which any such recommendation is relevant. If the Board, when making such a determination, decides to differ from a relevant recommendation, it must state its reasons for the difference and communicate that statement in writing to the Assembly Commission. The statement will be laid before the Assembly.
31.In subsequent determinations, the Board will not be obliged to have regard to the Panel’s recommendations in those determinations, but may do so if it wishes. This reflects the fact that as time goes by the detailed recommendations made in the Panel’s report will increasingly be superseded by the Board’s own decisions incorporated into its determinations.