Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill: business and regulatory impact assessment

Section 4: Additional implementation considerations

Enforcement/ compliance

Crofting

229. Responsibility for ensuring regulatory compliance across the crofting sector is the responsibility of the Crofting Commission. The Bill is concerned with reforming aspects of existing crofting legislation and will for the most part rely upon existing enforcement mechanisms. Improving the effectiveness of the enforcement of crofters' duties to be resident within 32 km of their croft and to maintain and put the croft to a purposeful use, is a key priority for the Scottish Government. To help achieve this some of the measures in the Bill are intended to make the existing mechanisms less bureaucratic and easier for the Commission to apply.

230. When taking action to ensure compliance with crofter duties, the Commission provide reasonable time and opportunity to individuals found to be in breach to resolve the situation. This will continue to be the approach, with enforcement action, to terminate a tenancy or require an owner-occupier crofter to let the croft, being taken as a last resort, as currently.

231. Under current crofting legislation, there are instances where a failure to comply with requirements may result in a criminal conviction and a fine not exceeding level three on the standard scale - approximately £1,000. These provisions are intended only for the most serious breaches and, to date, have never been used. The Bill will not create any new criminal offences.

232. Some measures would enable the Commission to apply non-criminal sanctions in certain circumstances. For instance, one proposal would apply where a crofter fails to respond to the Crofting Census, or fails to comply with conditions attached to the approval of an application. In the case of a crofter failing to respond to the Census, or to provide information required by law, the sanction may be that any current or future application could be put on hold by the Commission until the matter is resolved. For cases where a crofter has failed to comply with the conditions imposed by the Commission when approving their application, the penalty could result in the approval being revoked.

Scottish Land Court

233. This is not considered to apply to the provisions relating to the Scottish Land Court as the Land Court is itself a judicial body concerned with the administration of the law. This is also not considered to apply in respect of the Upper Tribunal provisions, for the same reasons.