54.Section 6 amends section 3 of the 2000 Act. Section 3 of the 2000 Act sets out that Scottish Ministers may require SNH or any other public body appearing to them to have expertise relevant to the National Park aims, to consider a National Park proposal and report to Scottish Ministers on it. This means that only a public body can be chosen to consider a National Park proposal and report on it. The amendments made by section 6(2) allow the Scottish Ministers to appoint any person or public body to undertake consideration and reporting, as long as they have expertise relevant to the National Park aims.
55.The remainder of the changes made to the 2000 Act by section 6 are as a result of the change of framing of section 3(1) of the 2000 Act. Primarily, they change language of “requirement” to “appointment” to recognise that persons other than public bodies could not be “required” to undertake a consideration of a National Park proposals and produce a report.
The Act Reports on National Park proposals Section 6 – Choice of reporter for National Park proposals