Introduction

Section 7 of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 (the 2018 Act), places a specific duty on relevant authorities, including the Scottish Ministers and other public bodies, to have regard to island communities in carrying out their functions.

This includes the need to consult with island communities and prepare an Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) to determine and respond to any changes arising from legislation which, in their opinion, is likely to have an effect on an island community which is significantly different from its effect on other communities (including other island communities) in Scotland.

This assessment should:

• describe the likely significantly different effect of the legislation;
• assess the extent to which the Scottish Ministers consider that the legislation can be developed in such a manner as to improve or mitigate, for island communities, the outcomes resulting from the legislation; and
• set out the financial implications of steps taken under this subsection to mitigate, for island communities, the outcomes resulting from the legislation.

The Island Communities Impact Assessments: Guidance and Toolkit (2020) (the Guidance) sets out an approach for undertaking an ICIA. This includes an initial screening stage ('Section 7 assessment'), followed by an additional impact assessment stage ('Section 8 assessment') if required following screening. The final stage is the publication of relevant documents.

This document constitutes the ICIA undertaken in respect of The Building (Scotland) Amendment (No.2) Regulations 2022 as they relate to standards for the installation of Electric Vehicle charge point sockets and enableing EV infrastructure in new domestic and non-domestic buildings.  Whilst our overall assessment is that these standards will be beneficial to Island communities and that the impact will not be negligibly different from what we expect the impact to be on the rest of Scotland, we have decided to undertake and publish a light-touch ICIA to reassure those communities of our reasoning behind not implementing a different policy in the Islands.