What access it has to papers of the previous administration and whether that access differs from the practice followed when there is a chan…

When there is a change of Administration of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, there is a long established convention that a new Administration does not normally have access to papers of a previous Administration of a different political complexion. The convention covers, in particular, Ministers' own deliberations and the advice given to them by officials, other than written advice from the Law Officers and those papers which were published or put in the public domain by the predecessor Administration.In applying the convention to the devolved administration in Scotland any information contained in administrative and departmental records belonging to a Minister of the Crown or a UK Government Department is treated as if it were contained in papers of a previous Administration of a different political complexion. This convention, therefore, qualifies the right conferred upon the Scottish Ministers by Article 10(2)(b) of the Transfer of Property (Scottish Ministers) Order 1999 (SI 1999/1104) to have access to certain administrative and departmental records belonging to a Minister of the Crown or a UK Government Department. In practice this means, in particular, that Scottish Ministers do not normally have access to advice given to Scottish Office Ministers or to the deliberations of those Ministers in papers dated before 1 July 1999, unless they have been published. Written opinions of the UK Law Officers which date from before 1 July 1999 may be made available.