Consultation on the Draft Regulations relating to the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 (Set 1 of 2)

Responding to this Consultation Paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by Friday 1 August 2014. Please send your response with the completed Respondent Information Form (replicated in Annexes 1C, 2C, 3C, 4C, 5C and 6C) (see "Handling your Response" below) to:

Email to: Alison.beckett@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Or

Alison Beckett

Scottish Government

Area 2 E.R.

St. Andrews House

Regent Road

Edinburgh

EH1 3DG

If you have any queries please contact Alison Beckett on 0131 244 4824.

We would be grateful if you would use the consultation questionnaires provided or could clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to, as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

This consultation, and all other Scottish Government consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations.

The Scottish Government has an email alert system for consultations, http://register.scotland.gov.uk. This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). It complements, but in no way replaces, Scottish Government distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all Scottish Government consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form (replicated in Annexes 1C, 2C, 3C, 4C, 5C and 6C) as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly. All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public in the Scottish Government Library (see the attached Respondent Information Form, which is replicated in Annexes 1C, 2C, 3C, 4C, 5C and 6C) and on the Scottish Government consultation web pages. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the Scottish Government Library on 0131 244 4552. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us reach a decision on the draft Regulations and Orders relating to the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014. We aim to issue a report on this consultation process and we will lay draft Regulations in the Scottish Parliament from late September 2014.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to Alison Beckett in the first instance at the above address.

Yours faithfully

ALISON BECKETT

Scottish Government

Integrating and Reshaping Care Division