Commentary Part 1 – Historic Environment Scotland Section 8 – Delegation of functions in relation to collections
60.Section 8 enables the Scottish Ministers to delegate the management of their collections to Historic Environment Scotland or to any prescribed person Ministers consider appropriate. This means that Ministers may only delegate functions under this section to persons who have been first prescribed by order.
61.Subsection (2) allows for delegation to take place despite the existence of prohibitions or restrictions on delegation in agreements.
62.Subsection (3) clarifies that such delegations can apply to a particular collection, a group of collections or all collections. The same subsection also clarifies that such delegations can apply to a particular object in a collection, or a group of such objects.
63.Subsection (4) makes it clear that any revenue received as a result of the exercise of any delegated function is the revenue of the person to whom the function is delegated unless Ministers provide otherwise in the delegation. Thus, money paid by a publisher in return for the right to use images of objects in delegated collections would remain with Historic Environment Scotland.
64.Subsection (5) makes it clear that delegation of functions does not affect the ultimate responsibility of the Scottish Ministers.
65.Subsections (6) and (7) require that the Scottish Ministers must make such delegations in writing, that they can be varied or revoked at any time and that they must be published.
66.Subsection (8) clarifies that references in this section to the Scottish Ministers’ collections are to collections of objects which are owned by, in the custody of, or otherwise under the management and control of the Scottish Ministers – as distinct from the collections of Historic Environment Scotland itself by virtue of section 6 and any transfer of property scheme under paragraph 4 of schedule 5.