Chamber and committees

The committee has taken evidence on that. OSCR already works with umbrella charities or parent charities in cases of charities not submitting, and it has done so for a number of years. When a charity fails to provide accounts on time, it is shown on the Scottish charity register and there is nothing to prevent OSCR sharing that information with the parent or umbrella organisation and working with it to ensure compliance by the individual charity. For example, if you take a church body that is not a designated religious charity, exactly the same applies. The supervisory functions of the designated religious charity in respect of the individual church would apply and it would be for the DRC to deal with that.

I hope that that gives you some clarity.

A licensing authority can refuse to consider a licence application if it considers that the use of the premises would breach planning control. The guidance for hosts sets out that applicants are advised to check their local authority’s planning policies to find out whether they need to obtain planning permission before applying for a licence. Outwith control areas, a material change of use will continue to require planning permission. It is a matter for the relevant planning authority to determine case by case whether the proposed change of use is material, and it is the responsibility of hosts to ensure that they comply with any relevant legal requirements, including any required planning permission.

The question was specifically about the situation in Glasgow. Planning authorities can adopt blanket policies on short-term lets in their local development plans and, as I understand it, since 2017, Glasgow City Council has adopted a policy in its LDP of refusing to grant planning permission for change of use from a residential flat to short-stay accommodation in existing blocks of residential flats. I assume that that is for all the reasons that we understand around the potential for neighbour disruption and so on. Those powers already exist. I hope that that is a helpful clarification.

We will monitor the situation. That goes back to the point about sharing best practice across the 32 councils. When issues have been raised—that issue is a key one—we have worked with licensing authorities and asked them to take a sensible approach.

Requiring hosts to apply for temporary exemptions will give licensing authorities the ability to have temporary licences of up to six weeks. That is the right approach to take. As for home sharers, we have set out in guidance the parameters that licensing authorities should consider—for example, when setting fees—to ensure that the process distinguishes between home sharers, who should be recognised as being at the lower end of the scale, and whole-property lets, which are quite different. Taking that together with the availability of temporary licences for up to six weeks should ensure that during the Edinburgh festival, for example, people who let out a room in their home or a flat for that part of the year, for that purpose and nothing else, will be covered.

I might bring in my officials on the detail, because they have been speaking directly to the Edinburgh festivals organisations. We have listened to their concerns. Along with discussions that have happened around making the process less onerous and more straightforward, the extension will not have an adverse impact. I think that we will want to take stock of this year’s situation in time for summer next year.

David Manderson might want to say a bit more about that.

In the guidance, we set out that we would like hosts and operators to be able to conduct as many transactions as possible in an online or electronic format. Most licensing authorities have put in place online application systems for short-term let licensing. There are of course benefits to licensing authorities from having clear and easy-to-use application methods. It helps to reduce the volume of queries from prospective applicants if the process and guidance are clear and if the application is straightforward.

The guidance also sets out that licensing authorities are still expected to have paper copies of relevant information and the application form available on request, for what will perhaps be a small number of people who cannot access them online.

Given that the scheme is new, we would expect licensing authorities to refine their processes over time in the light of feedback from hosts. Clearly, when we do the wider review, that is one area where we will want to ensure that the best practice—based on feedback from hosts about what they have found easiest to use—is encouraged. I do not think that there is anything to be gained from having overly complex systems. We therefore have not required that, and we have tried to set out in the guidance that we want the systems to be as simple and straightforward as possible, and as digitally based as possible.

I recognise that, and I recognise that there were mixed views about the short delay.

It is important to emphasise that we are not delaying the implementation of the licensing of short-term lets. Local authorities continue to receive applications from new and existing hosts. This is not a pause, and we encourage hosts to keep applying throughout. The extension is a recognition of some of the challenges for existing hosts, to which it is a pragmatic solution. However, there is no rolling back of the scheme overall, because we believe that it is important not just that everyone can have confidence that the basic safety standards are met but that things are taken together as a package—given that local authorities have promised to address concerns around antisocial behaviour and so on. I therefore do not think that residents should have concern.

Obviously, there are mandatory requirements, and then licensing authorities have discretion to impose additional conditions to respond to local needs and concerns. Those additional conditions might apply to everyone in a licensing authority area, or they might be specific to certain types of property, such as tenements. Alternatively, they might apply on a case-by-case basis. Additional conditions can help licensing authorities to respond to local challenges and concerns that are specific to certain models of short-term letting, such as tenement flats, where there are other people to consider.

The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 gives licensing authorities powers to impose conditions, which should be

“reasonable conditions as the licensing authority think fit”.

That is quite a wide power. In the guidance, we have set out some of the issues that licensing authorities might wish to address through the use of additional conditions. Those include things such as

“noise and nuisance ... litter or other mess in communal areas”

and a

“failure to maintain, or contribute to the cost of, communal area repairs and increased wear and tear”.

The guidance includes suggested template additional conditions in relation to antisocial behaviour, privacy, security, noise, littering and waste disposal, and damage to property.

Some licensing authorities removed or amended additional conditions following consultations on their draft licensing policies, so they have obviously taken into account the feedback from communities. Where hosts have concerns about specific additional conditions that they feel are onerous or go beyond the intention, we would encourage them to discuss those directly with the relevant licensing authority.

There is extensive local flexibility, but we urge that there should be a relationship with the guidance. I have set out the areas on which we anticipated that additional conditions would focus.

Yes, indeed.

That issue has been raised. We have received reassurances from licensing authorities that they are taking pragmatic approaches to floor plans. For example, they are accepting hand-drawn plans that provide sufficient detail, they are offering to pre-check drawings before an application is submitted and they are providing examples of acceptable plans. Such plans include annotated versions of existing plans that hosts have, so hosts should not feel that they need to get a set of architect drawings. Through discussion of those issues, the position is now clear. Licensing authorities have been communicating with hosts to make the expectations clear.

There is, of course, an important reason for having floor plans of some description. They ensure that, for example, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is able to identify and address potential issues with fire escape locations. There is therefore a purpose to having floor plans, even in a basic form. Another reason for having them relates to maximum occupancy levels.

We need to be pragmatic about what a floor plan should consist of, and we have reached a much more reasonable and pragmatic position in that regard.