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Category: Member Benefits

Updated Cleaning Protocols and Sectoral Guidance for Self-Catering Properties and Short-Term Lets

Posted on by Fiona Campbell

PHS have had the opportunity to review the Cleaning Protocols and Sectoral Guidance for Self-Catering Properties in light of the stage we are at in the pandemic, alongside colleagues from Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection Scotland (ARHAI).

“In response to an earlier request to review these protocols (July 2021), we noted the excellent work done by ASSC in producing such thorough guidance for their members to ensure that they could restart business as safely as possible.  At that time, we also advised on a number of relaxations that we felt could be made to the protocols, based on changes to government and PHS guidance, as well as the progression of the pandemic. 

“We now feel that we are at a point where businesses should not simply return to pre-pandemic practices, i.e. business as usual, but should aim to build back better based on our increased awareness of good infection prevention and control practices.  The pandemic has highlighted the importance of many of the mitigations that were put in place for COVID-19.  These mitigations, however, have also shown to be successful in reducing the risk of other health outcomes during the pandemic and we feel that these should continue to be highlighted as best practice as we move forward.”

Advice is, therefore, to “build back better” by embedding some key principles into practices, and by referring to PHS’s COVID-19 information and guidance for workplaces and community settings.  

Emphasised measures should include (but needn’t be limited to):

  • Ensuring that there is a cleaning protocol in place for their properties, detailed with responsibilities assigned
  • Ensuring that frequently touched surfaces and sanitary areas are cleaned regularly (where buckets of water are used for cleaning/mopping, ensuring that these are changed regularly and always after cleaning sanitary areas)
  • Ensuring the use of products in line with manufacturer’s instructions
  • Ensuring maximisation of ventilation of properties – also encouraging the same from guests during their stay and upon departure where safe to do so
  • Encouraging good hand hygiene by staff, as well as continuing with the provision of hand hygiene products for customers

All of these measures are already highlighted within the existing protocols so should already be familiar to hosts and operators.

Cleaning Protocols

Download the Cleaning-Protocols: 2022 Cleaning Protocols V1

Download a word copy of a Risk Assessment form: Risk-Assessment 2022

Download a word copy of a Cleaning Checklist: Self-Catering-Cleaning-Checklist

If someone develops symptoms of a respiratory infection, including COVID-19, while on site

The symptoms of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections are very similar. It is not possible to tell if an individual has COVID-19, flu or another respiratory infection based on symptoms alone.

Symptoms of COVID-19, flu and common respiratory infections include:

  • continuous cough
  • high temperature, fever or chills
  • loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell
  • shortness of breath
  • unexplained tiredness, lack of energy
  • muscle aches or pains that are not due to exercise
  • not wanting to eat or not feeling hungry
  • headache that is unusual or longer lasting than usual
  • sore throat, stuffy or runny nose
  • diarrhoea, feeling sick or being sick

Further information is available via NHS inform.

Guests should inform you immediately if they develop symptoms of Covid-19 or any other respiratory illness while staying at your property.

While the individual is on the premises, the general measures to prevent spread should be followed. The affected person should return home as soon as they notice symptoms, following the latest NHS inform guidance.

Advice on cleaning of areas after an individual with symptoms of a respiratory infection, including COVID-19, or a positive COVID-19 test result has left a workplace or community setting is set out in Section 3.4.

If required, NHS Board Health Protection Teams can be approached for additional advice. They may also make the decision to engage in the handling of any individual cases, clusters, or outbreaks at their discretion, if they perceive a risk to public health.

In the event of an outbreak, people on the Highest Risk List should follow any individual advice they have been given by their clinician

See PHS guidance -paragraphs – 2.3 – 2.5: COVID-19 information and guidance for workplaces and community settings (publichealthscotland.scot)

Disclaimer: The content of the cleaning protocols is based on guidance from the HSE (Health and Safety Executive), WHO (World Health Organisation), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), and Centres for Disease Control (CDC), NIH (National Institutes of Health), NHS (National Health Service). These agencies do not endorse this content. This is guidance only, and we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to this content provided for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

 

Short-Term Let Regulations in Scotland

Posted on by Fiona Campbell

Short-Term Let Regulations are coming into force in Scotland.

Context

Tourism is a force for good in Scotland. It makes a major contribution to our country’s GDP, impacts on jobs, spreads wealth across the whole of Scotland; and is a sustainable, innovative and indigenous industry that offers huge potential. Nationally and locally, it benefits our communities.

The ASSC are rightly proud that self-catering has been a mainstay of the Scottish tourism industry for generations and is integral to its success and future vitality. Professional self-caterers are part of local communities across Scotland and have been for many, many years. Their value is demonstrated by the considerable economic contribution: self-catering provides a £867m per annum boost to the Scottish economy, benefiting local communities the length and breadth of Scotland, supporting 23,979 FTE jobs:

We are immensely proud of our businesses, of those we employ, and our record of not only being a fundamental part of Scotland’s world class tourism offering but also of the communities that we live and work in. Given the importance of self-catering to the Scottish tourism industry, which has experienced such a challenging time due to the impact of Covid-19, an appropriate regulatory balance is a necessity, as is a supportive environment to help businesses recover and flourish.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Government has chosen this time to introduce a controversial regulatory framework for short-term lets in Scotland.

Short-Term Let Licensing and Planning Control Areas

The Scottish Government has introduced a licensing regime for short-term lets in Scotland. Anyone looking to grant a short-term let for the first time from 1 October 2022 will need a licence before they do so. Those who are already operating short-term lets before 1 October 2022 must apply for a licence by 1 April 2023 if they wish to continue doing so. It will be an offence punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 for short-term lets granted without a licence.

Every local authority is tasked with setting up a licensing system by 1 October 2022. Existing short-term letting operators should consider the potential planning requirements as well as checking whether their property meets the required licensing standards. For those considering entering the short-term letting market, the additional cost of a licence and potentially planning permission should be taken into account. If buying a property, they should consider what information or evidence the seller might provide to allow short-term letting to continue or indeed begin.

In addition, new planning rules on short-term letting introduce a new power for local authorities to designate the whole or any part of their area as a Control Area. The effect of being in a Control Area is to make use for short-term letting of a whole dwelling house or whole self-contained flat, which is not the home of the host (a secondary letting), a material change of use as a matter of law. Such a secondary letting within a Control Area will always need planning permission as well as a licence.

As yet, there are no confirmed Control Areas but the City of Edinburgh Council has consulted on the whole of the council area being a Control Area and Highland Council are also consulting on whether Badenoch and Strathspey should become one.

Legislation pertaining to Short-Term Lets

It is important to note that these two pieces of legislation are very different, despite the issues being conflated over the last 5 years.  Licensing relates to the safety of an activity, while planning control areas relate to the use of properties.

Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers

Founded in 1978, the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers (ASSC) are the leading source of knowledge on short-term letting and holiday homes in Scotland and are the only trade body representing the interests of the traditional self-catering sector. Self-catering properties have been a longstanding presence in communities for generations, especially in rural communities, and provide an economic boost for local areas and enhance Scotland’s tourist accommodation offering. We represent over 1350 Members, operating tens of thousands of self-catering properties throughout Scotland, from city centre apartments to rural cottages, to lodges and chalets, to castles, all of whom generate £867m per year for the Scottish economy. The ASSC commits its members to maintaining the principles of “quality, integrity, cleanliness, comfort, courtesy and efficiency” and to offering visitors to Scotland consistently high standards within their self-catering properties. The ASSC’s vision is to place our members at the forefront of a professional, vibrant and prosperous Scottish self-catering sector.

The ASSC did not want the form of short-term let licensing that is now on the statute book – a view shared by many stakeholders as well as local authorities in Scotland – and we continue to maintain that it will entail unintended consequences.

However, now that the legislation has been passed by the Scottish Government, and as we move towards the implementation stage and licensing schemes going live across the country, we want local councils to work with us and other relevant tourism and legal stakeholders, to ensure the smoothest possible rollout and to reduce the regulatory burden as much as possible.

In our ASSC manifesto, published prior to the local elections in May Self-Catering: Local, Reliable, Sustainable[1], we highlighted that self-catering can lead the way in providing holiday accommodation that balances the creation of memory-making vacations for our guests while also being a key part of our cities, towns, and villages.

To achieve this, our requests from local government over the next five years were:

  1. To Minimise the Burden of Short-Term Let Licensing: councils should work closely with small business representatives and industry to try and minimise the burden from licensing as much as possible, then carefully monitor its impacts, and not to impose ‘additional conditions’ on already hard-pressed businesses.
  1. To Ensure an Evidence-Base for Short-Term Let Control Areas: now is not the time to further burden self–catering with additional regulations like control areas but if local plans are proposed, they should be underpinned by robust, empirical data.

Whatever happens in terms of the local elections, or how local authorities will implement this legislation, we will aspire to work constructively and collaboratively with our national and local government partners for the benefit of our members, local communities and our industry’s recovery. That’s our pledge to our members and our sector.

[1] https://www.assc.co.uk/policy/local-government-election-manifesto-2022/

Local Government Committee approves ‘arbitrary, irrational & draconian’ short-term let licensing plans

Posted on by Fiona Campbell

The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee have today approved the Scottish Government’s plans to introduce short-term let licensing. The regulations will now head to plenary for a vote of all MSPs at a later date.

During their meeting, the Committee heard evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Housing Shona Robison, accompanied by her officials, who took questions from MSPs. They was also joined by the former Cabinet Secretary for Tourism Fergus Ewing who raised a number of concerns relating to the licensing proposals.

Mr Ewing highlighted that the industry’s proposals for mandatory short-term let registration, just as with the Scottish Landlord Register, could include a fit and proper test – which the government maintained wasn’t the case when dismissing our exemption proposal. He also made valuable points in relation to the existing regulations faced by industry, anti-social behaviour powers that local councils needed to enforce, and the threat of judicial review arising from the licensing proposals.

Questions were also put on the following from other MSPs:

  • The data underpinning the Scottish Government’s plans.
  • Whether overprovision powers could be brought back at a later date.
  • Why a mandatory registration scheme had been rejected in favour of licensing.
  • The costs to local authorities arising from licensing, specifically the differences in the level of fees estimated in the Scottish Government’s BRIA and those from SOLAR.
  • If the Scottish Government had considered piloting their regulations, or giving local councils full powers to determine whether licensing was appropriate for their area.
  • The costs to business from licensing and compliance costs – and if many businesses would close as a result.
  • The views of Police Scotland on short-term let licensing and the anti-social behaviour powers already available to local councils in respect of holiday lets.
  • The Scottish Government’s planned review of licensing in 2023.

After the Committee discussion, the licensing plans were approved by five votes to two.

You can view a recording of the evidence session and vote here: https://www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/local-government-housing-and-planning-committee-december-21-2021

In response to today’s development, the ASSC have issued the following comment.

Fiona Campbell, Chief Executive of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers, said:

“The ASSC is naturally disappointed that the Committee has agreed to the revised Licensing Order. This is despite the strength of opposition highlighted in their recent survey, not to mention widespread concern from tourism, business and local authority stakeholder responses in the Scottish Government’s third consultation exercise on the issue.

We maintain that the Scottish Government’s regulations were unfit for purpose when withdrawn in February 2021 and remain so in December 2021, largely as industry and expert insight has been dismissed. Make no mistake, they will damage the Scottish tourism industry – which is still in survival mode – and will burden local councils at a time they can least afford it.

It also comes at the worst possible time for self-caterers and B&B owners who face an uncertain future with the challenges associated with Covid-19. Policymakers need to take these circumstances into account and support small and micro businesses through this and minimise the burden.

We endorse the views expressed at the Committee by the former Cabinet Secretary for Tourism Fergus Ewing on the merits of a mandatory registration scheme, which contrary to the position of the Scottish Government, could include a fit and proper person test. Mr Ewing also raised the valuable economic contribution made by the industry but that many operators will now fear their business being confiscated through the draconian powers made available to local councils and the risk of judicial review therein.

These regulations are, in the words of the former Cabinet Secretary, ‘arbitrary, irrational & draconian’, and it is not too late for the Scottish Government to think again. With the regulations now heading to a vote in plenary, we would therefore strongly encourage all MSPs to back small business and protect livelihoods in Scotland’s £867m self-catering industry by rejecting these ill-timed and onerous plans.”

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19800535.snp-msp-fergus-ewing-labels-governments-airbnb-crackdown-plans-draconian/