STATUTE LAW REVISION: SIXTEENTH ... - Law Commission

“provisions relating to a statutory undertaking or a protected provision for the
benefit of any person”. Thus the whole of every Local Authority-promoted Act did
not necessarily cease to have effect on the coming into operation of the general
cesser. As a result of those exceptions, parts of many Local Acts continued to
have effect and, since there were very few explicit repeals of pre-May 1975 local
legislation effected, most Local Authority-promoted local legislation remained
technically on the Statute Book, whether redundant or not.
7.4 With the benefit of information gathered in the course of the preparation of the
Local Table, the Scottish Law Commission decided to undertake the first stage of
rationalising, through statute law revision measures, the accumulated Local
Authority-promoted local legislation in Scotland. The first results of this project
were included in the Fifteenth Report on Statute Law Revision and subsequently
given effect to in the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1995. The topics dealt with there
related to Glasgow or to specific borrowing powers of local authorities. Group 5
of Part VII of this Report continues that work on Local Acts which deal with
specific borrowing powers of particular local authorities.
7.5 In six of the seven Acts mentioned, the substantive provisions have been
superseded by the wider provisions of Public General Statute. In five of those six
cases, all the former District Councils and Regional Councils were consulted
prior to 1 April 1996, about the relevant proposed repeals, while in the sixth case
the successor to the former county council was consulted after this date, (local
authorities having again been reorganised in Scotland with effect from 1 April
1996). Insofar as the seventh Act - relating to Dunoon Burgh - is concerned, the
powers conferred on the local authority to raise revenue for the particular
purpose described have long since been exercised and that Act is therefore
spent. Again the successor local authority was consulted about repeal and had
no objection. In that particular case however a party which had a private interest
(excepted from the operation of the general cesser) specified in the Local Act
was also consulted and had no objection to repeal.
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