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Legislation falls into two categories – primary and secondary
legislation. Primary legislation comprises Acts of Parliament. Acts
often make provision for related, but more detailed, regulations
to be issued by means of statutory instruments. These statutory
instruments are known as secondary legislation. In Scotland, the
same relationship exists between Acts of the Scottish Parliament
and Scottish Statutory Instruments.
Several local government acts include provisions affecting records.
In most cases, only one or two sections of these acts are relevant.
These sections, together with a short introduction to the acts they
come from, are given below.
Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 introduced a two-tier system
of local government comprising 9 regional authorities (divided into
53 district councils) and 3 unitary island councils. This arrangement
came into effect in 1974 and survived until 1995. The Act also includes
several sections with a bearing on the recording and publication of
information and on rights of access to records. However, Section 200,
which governed the transfer of records between the old and new authorities
and required the new authorities to make 'proper arrangements' for
their records, was repealed by the Environment Act 1995.
We have produced a
copy of the relevant parts of the 1973 Act, incorporating
amendments made by subsequent legislation.
Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985
As the title suggests, this Act is largely concerned with setting
out the rights of access to information held by local authorities.
We have produced a
copy of the relevant parts of the 1985 Act, incorporating
amendments made by subsequent legislation.
Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994
This Act replaced the two-tier system of Scottish local government
with 29 unitary authorities, coming into effect in 1995. It also provided
for the transfer of property, including records, between the old and
new authorities and obliges local authorities to make 'proper arrangements'
for their records after consulting the Keeper
of the Records of Scotland.
We have produced a
copy of the relevant parts of the 1994 Act , incorporating
amendments made by subsequent legislation.
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