Decoration Allowance Policy - Section 5
5. Legal Framework
5.1 The Moray Council will ensure that the Decoration Allowance Policy complies with current legislation and promotes good practice.
Landlord responsibility to "make good"
5.2 The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 Section 27 and Schedule 4 states that landlords must carry out any necessary work within a reasonable timescale and make good any damage caused by them in carrying out the work.
5.3 The Council requires any contractor to 'make good' any damage that they may have caused, e.g. repair and prepare surfaces for redecoration, but not to redecorate.
Tenant responsibility for internal decoration
5.4 Para 2.2 of The Moray Council's Scottish Secure Tenancy Agreement and Short Scottish Secure Tenancy Agreement states that the tenant must take reasonable care to prevent damage to the decoration of the property.
5.5 Para 5.17 of The Moray Council's Scottish Secure Tenancy Agreement and Short Scottish Secure Tenancy Agreement states that the tenant is responsible for taking reasonable care of the house, which includes carrying out minor repairs and internal decoration. Tenants are advised of this when they sign their tenancy agreement.
Discrimination and Equal Opportunities
5.6 The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 places a general duty on all public authorities, when carrying out their functions, to have due regard to the need to ... promote equality of opportunity between disabled persons and other persons and to ... take steps to take account of disabled persons' disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other persons. 'Due regard' means that authorities should give due weight to the need to promote disability equality in proportion to its relevance. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 states a person "has a disability if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities".
Managing Information - Data Protection
5.7 The Data Protection Act 1998 governs the way information is obtained, recorded, stored, used and then eventually destroyed. The Moray Council complies with all the requirements of the Act and ensures that personal data is processed fairly and lawfully, that it is used for the purpose it was intended for and that only relevant information is used. The Council will ensure that information held is accurate, and where necessary kept up-to-date and that appropriate measures are taken that would prevent the unauthorised or unlawful use of any personal information given.
Freedom of Information
5.8 The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 came fully into force on 1 January 2005. The purpose of this Act is to "provide a right of access by the public to information held by public authorities". In terms of Section 1 of the Act, the general entitlement is that a "person who requests information from a Scottish public authority which holds it is entitled to be given it by the authority". Information which a person is entitled to is the information held by the authority at the time that the request is made. However, there are exemptions to this ruling to ensure that 'personal data' is not disclosed in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.