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I would be open to that, but I am not sure that it would have the effect that Mr Balfour would want. I say that because, if we agreed to an amendment that included a timescale for a review that fitted better with the commencement plans, it would be necessary to divert resources from the wider review that we, as a Government, have already said we will undertake once the bill is enacted. We would be obliged to carry out a review even if nobody was calling for it or had any issues in practice. I do not believe that that is the right approach, particularly when any stakeholders who might want to raise specific points relating to the bill will be engaging with the wider review that we have committed to and will no doubt raise any points there that they want us to consider.

For those reasons, I am afraid that I have to say no to Mr Balfour—I would not be open to that. I do try to oblige Mr Balfour with amendments and assistance, but I will not in this case.

Convener, as I have set out to the committee previously, the Scottish Government intends to take a phased approach to implementation, with at least two sets of commencement regulations anticipated in spring 2024 and summer 2025. That is to allow charities and OSCR the time that they need to prepare for the changes and to give OSCR the opportunity to consult the sector, produce guidance and communicate the changes. The Parliament has the ability to conduct post-legislative scrutiny of any act, so it is not necessary for such actions to be specified in the bill, particularly if the specified timings for them do not align with the expected commencement of the bill.

As I have already mentioned, the Government is committed to conducting a much wider review of charity regulation following commencement of the bill. My officials are already preparing the groundwork for that, and I have carried out meetings on the issue as well. I am committed to working with the sector to shape that review and to ensure that there is a proper opportunity for engagement. During stage 1, members and stakeholders were very clear about the importance of doing that, and I very much agree. A review of the bill would, as I have said to Mr Balfour, hold up that wider review by diverting resources. I therefore urge the committee not to agree to amendment 23 if Mr Balfour moves it.

These are three very minor amendments. Amendment 15 removes a redundant cross-reference. Amendments 17 and 19 modify two of the headings in the 2005 act, which OSCR and the Charity Law Association, respectively, flagged as being potentially confusing or inaccurate. My thanks to them for highlighting those points.

I move amendment 15.

Amendment 15 agreed to.

Amendments 16 and 17 moved—[Shirley-Anne Somerville]—and agreed to.

Amendment 2 addresses the recommendation made by the committee at stage 1 to provide for a dispute mechanism in connection with OSCR’s appointment of interim trustees. The committee raised the issue that there was a lack of recourse for any existing charity trustees of a charity to which interim trustees are appointed. The amendment addresses that issue by extending the established review and appeal mechanism under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 to appointments of interim trustees in cases in which it is known that there are still some existing charity trustees continuing to act.

The new provision that is introduced by section 8 is designed primarily to capture those small number of cases in which there are no trustees acting for the charity. However, I accept that there might be some occasions on which an existing trustee could still be acting and a right of review over OSCR’s decision is warranted. The same is also true of the existing appointment process, which is restated by section 8.

In that scenario, although the aim is that the existing trustees would ask OSCR to step in because they are unable to make an appointment themselves, that request does not have to be unanimous. As such, I agree that it is right that there should be a review and appeal mechanism for any trustee who wants to challenge that decision. I hope that members will therefore support the amendment.

I move amendment 2.

Amendment 13 introduces a new section to the bill, albeit that it is on a topic that has previously been subject to full public consultation. Amendment 13 seeks to clarify the existing provisions in the 2005 act that relate to the reorganisation of endowments held by what are often referred to, for shorthand, as statutory charities—that is, charities that are constituted under royal charter or royal warrant or an enactment. An endowment is property where the capital has to be preserved and only the income is spent on the fund’s charitable purposes.

For most charities, if the charity’s constitution would not allow it to take an action such as varying its constitution, transferring its property to another charity or amalgamating with another charity, the charity can apply for a reorganisation scheme to allow it to take that action, if OSCR grants consent.

However, those rules are turned off for statutory charities, subject to a specific exception relating to endowments. The wording of the existing provision has caused confusion for some statutory charities and OSCR about the extent to which an endowment can be reorganised by OSCR. In some cases, that has meant that the only way forward is through the use of private bills to reorganise endowments. My amendment 13 is intended to resolve that issue and to allow endowments that are held by statutory charities to be reorganised, as we believe the 2005 act always intended.

It is not a straightforward area of the law and, as such, I anticipate that there might be a need for further technical refinement of the proposed new section at stage 3, once detailed feedback from charities, legal professionals and OSCR has been received.

Given the complexity that is involved, there are also wider issues around statutory charity reorganisation that would still need to be considered in the post-bill review. However, amendment 13 provides a solution in the short term for some statutory charities, and they should see significant financial savings by no longer needing to reorganise through a private bill.

It is right to deal first with fixing the rules around endowments, as there is a long historical precedent for those being allowed to reorganise more readily, and there is existing provision on which to build. It was also the current exception relating to endowments that OSCR asked us to clarify in its 2018 paper with the proposals that form the backbone of the bill.

Amendment 13 contains two new regulation-making powers for Scottish ministers. The first is a power to adjust the definition of “endowment”, should practical experience of the new provisions give rise to any issues.

The second power gives ministers the ability to disapply—through regulation—those changes in respect of particular endowments or charities, or classes of endowment or charity. The latter aspect is considered necessary in order to ensure that, where there are policy reasons for restricting the reorganisation of a particular endowment or charity, that can be achieved.

I hope that members will agree that we should do what we can do now to refine the provision on that topic that is already in the 2005 act. Then, in the post-bill review, we can turn to the much wider question of reorganisations that do not involve endowments.

I move amendment 13.

I have no further comments.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Section 2, as amended, agreed to.

After section 2

This group deals with notices that are given both by and to OSCR. I will speak to amendments 14 and 20 first, which deal with notices that are given by OSCR.

Amendment 14 makes a minor change when OSCR is obtaining documents from a third party for an inquiry into a former charity. The amendment clarifies the application of the rule that ensures that, when a body continues to exist but without charitable status, notice is served by OSCR on the body that used to be a charity.

Amendment 20 is designed to provide OSCR with alternative methods of serving notice in certain circumstances.

As part of its overarching duty to act in a fair, transparent and proportionate way, OSCR is required to serve notice on a charity or a charity trustee before it can take specified regulatory action—for example, issuing a direction.

However, in some cases, OSCR does not have accurate contact information for the charity or trustees in order to serve the notice, which means that OSCR is prevented from pursuing regulatory action, as it is unable to serve the required notice. Although the introduction of an internal schedule of trustee details held by OSCR will, in large part, address that problem, there will, inevitably, be cases in which contact information is unavailable or becomes out of date.

Amendment 20 will allow OSCR to serve the relevant notices by other means—for example, by publishing a notice on its website. Serving notice by other means would be used as a last resort when previous attempts to contact the charity directly had failed. That will allow OSCR to continue its regulatory action.

Amendment 20 relates only to notices in respect of which the action being taken is such that it is still appropriate to take it even if the charity or body in question cannot be contacted directly. For example, if a direction is issued to a bank not to part with charity funds but the charity also needs to be notified of the direction, there would be value in issuing that direction to the bank even if the charity itself cannot be located and can be notified only by means of a public notice.

I turn to notices that are given to OSCR. Amendment 16 addresses concerns that were raised by stakeholders—in particular, the Law Society of Scotland—about the current requirement that charities wishing to take certain actions that require OSCR’s consent give OSCR at least 42 days’ advance notice before they take the relevant action.

Amendment 16 does not remove the need for charities to obtain OSCR’s consent before taking such actions; it means that, once OSCR grants its consent, the charity will be able to act straight away, if it wishes, instead of having to wait until the end of the 42-day period.

I hope that the committee will agree with the approach that is being taken to all these notice requirements and that it will support all the amendments in the group.

I move amendment 14.

Amendment 14 agreed to.

Section 14, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 15 and 16 agreed to.

After section 16

Good morning, convener.

Section 2 imposes a specific requirement to include the names of charity trustees on the Scottish charity register. As well as ensuring transparency and accountability in charities, the section aims to ensure that the publication of any information does not put anyone at risk. When the safety or security of any persons or premises could be jeopardised, an application for dispensation can be made to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator to exclude the charity’s contact address or any trustee names from the register.

A discretionary element was added to the bill to allow OSCR to apply dispensations to a charity or class of charities without the need for an application—for example, in the case of a women’s refuge charity. However, OSCR has expressed some concerns regarding that element of discretion. In particular, it is concerned that it might create an additional burden on OSCR to look behind every charity entry on the register in order to ascertain whether dispensation should apply. That was not the intention of the provision.

Following discussion with OSCR, the Government is satisfied that the key policy intention can be achieved in other ways—for example, by OSCR taking the initiative to contact a particular charity or class of charities to discuss any security concerns with them and to invite applications for dispensation that could then be processed swiftly.

As such, amendment 1 adjusts the process to be followed before a dispensation is granted. It removes OSCR’s ability to grant a dispensation of its own accord while retaining the ability to grant dispensation and remove the relevant information following an application from a charity or trustee.

I hope that the committee appreciates the need to overcome this technicality.

I move amendment 1.

A charity can apply on behalf of an individual—even if an individual was not in a position to apply for a dispensation or did not wish to, the charity could apply on their behalf. It is not just down to the individual. I hope that that reassures the member.

The amendment relates to specific concerns that OSCR raised about the impact of the discretion to grant dispensations of its own accord, because that would be a legal obligation.

Good morning. I will make a brief statement on the purpose of the SSI.

The SSI relates to our work to implement the Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2020, which introduced mixed-sex—that is, opposite-sex—civil partnerships in Scotland. Some 939 mixed-sex civil partnerships were entered into in Scotland in 2021 and 2022. We have been implementing the 2020 act in stages.

When the Scottish Government introduced the bill that became the 2020 act, we recognised that the introduction of mixed-sex civil partnerships could increase the risk of forced civil partnership. We do not consider that the risk of forced civil partnership is nearly as great as the risk of forced marriage. However, there is a range of protections against forced marriage, and we wanted to close any loophole that might allow those protections to be circumvented by forcing someone into a civil partnership instead. Therefore, section 13 of the 2020 act extends the forced marriage criminal offence to cover forced civil partnerships, too. I have just signed the Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No 5) Regulations 2023, which will commence section 13 of the 2020 act from 30 November 2023.

We noted in the policy memorandum accompanying the bill that part 1 of the Forced Marriage etc (Protection and Jurisdiction) (Scotland) Act 2011 contains civil measures on forced marriage, including forced marriage protection orders. We noted that we intended to introduce an SSI to extend forced marriage protection orders so that they can cover forced civil partnerships, too—that is the SSI that is before the committee. Those orders can contain prohibitions, restrictions, requirements or other provisions that are intended to protect someone from forced marriage. The provisions in the 2020 act to extend the forced marriage offence, and this SSI to extend the civil measure of forced marriage protection orders, provide a legislative package against forced civil partnership.

The SSI also makes two technical changes. First, it amends the definition of “marriage” in the 2011 act to include belief ceremonies. That is consequential to the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014, which included provision for the solemnisation of marriage by authorised celebrants of belief bodies.

Secondly, the SSI provides for decrees of declarator of nullity of marriage, when they are granted by a sheriff, to be included in a register of divorces that is operated by National Records of Scotland. That reflects the fact that the 2011 act extended jurisdiction in proceedings for declarator of nullity of marriage to the sheriff court; previously, those proceedings could be heard only in the Court of Session. Declarators of nullity are declarations by the courts that, in the eyes of the law, the relationship never existed.

If the SSI is approved by Parliament, our intention is to bring it into force on 30 November, to coincide with the forced marriage criminal offence being extended to cover forced civil partnerships.

That outlines the purpose of the SSI that is before the committee.

Teachers are only one part—but an exceptionally important part—of reducing the poverty-related attainment gap. As I said earlier, we have seen an increase of 2,000 teachers on pre-pandemic levels and, as in other countries, the overall attainment levels have been impacted by Covid. However, in large part because of the exceptionally hard work of teachers and support staff, we have seen improvements in the attainment gap, such as the biggest single-year decrease in the attainment gap in primary numeracy and literacy since levels began. We absolutely still have more work to do on that but we have seen recovery in place and, as I said, that would in large part be down to the teachers.

There are a number of ways in which that work can be done; I pointed to some of those earlier. It is not just done by one teacher in front of a class, but involves specialist work by teachers for small groups of pupils and support for those with additional support needs. There are a number of ways that that can be done.

The quality of teaching and learning is also important. It is not possible to say that there is one thing that will improve attainment. There are different aspects to that, but I hope we can agree that teachers are an integral part of that. That is why the Government has placed such importance on increasing teacher numbers and why I have taken decisions to ensure that we do not see decreases in teacher numbers, which should be maintained throughout the year.