North and South of the border

[lambie]

Can someone enlighten me as to why the terminology RRFSO, and why is it named so? What is it reforming?

[Ricardo]

Lambie

The Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (is where the RRFSO hails from )and seems to cover just about everything provides powers to make orders, for the reforming of Legislation. Some interesting reading for you

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/ukpga_20010006_en_1  and

http://bre.berr.gov.uk/regulation/reform/orders/

now hope i've got that right and I'm not even from RRFSO land

[nearlythere]

"Reforming" is Goverment speak for getting things done on the cheap.

[Tom Sutton]

The RR(FS)O has been achieved by reforming and amending the United Kingdom’s principle fire safety legislation using the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. The order was designed to provide a minimum fire safety standard in non domestic premises. This route was considered quicker than creating a new Act of Parliament and the terminology is from the 2001 act.

[lambie]

So it took the same length of time to impliment as it took the Scottish Parliament to make it an Act that exlains nearlythere's on the cheap. Thanks to you guys for an explanation it did kind of confuse. I think it is giving us all an opportunity to revisit stuff and ask even more questions than ever before.

[Mike Buckley]

RRFSO = Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is the Statutory Instrument which started the whole process off.

Basically the Government put an Act through Parliment (in this case the Regulatory Reform Act 2001) which broadly gives the government power to do something. This is a long process a reading in the House of Commons and possible ammendments followed by a reading in the House of Lords (more ammendments), then to Committees back to the House of Commons for a second reading, House of Lords, Committees, third reading House of Commons , House of Lords then to the Queen for Royal Assent  then it is LAW. The whole thing can take years, they can rush a law through in about 3-6 months if everyone agrees with it.

A Statutory Instrument is an Order made by a Minister or Secretary of State under powers given to him by the Act which doesn't need to go through the whole rigmorole of passing an Act, hence it can come into force a lot faster.

If you look at the government web site you will see that there are a lot of SIs compared to Acts. Some of the SIs are large like the RRFSO (or RRO) some are about a page long on a subject like raising the duty on petrol.

I would think there is a very similar process north of the border but maybe under different names.

[afterburner]

Lambie,
the way Scottish legislation works a Regulatory Reform Order has no legal basis, therefore the Regulations which were being reformed could not be reformed using that legisaltive platform. So, the Scottish Government, quite correctly within the legal and legislative application in Scotland came up with the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

Whilst our collegues south of the Border work with their RRFSO we work with an Act and Regulations. Do they differ? Probably only in the way enforcement actions are taken. The process within Scottish Courts via the Procurator Fiscal is different.

Apart from that I think they are very similar.

[wee brian]

They are both quite similar because they are following an EU Directive.