Scottish Statutory Instrument

A Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) is a form of secondary legislation in Scotland which is made under Scots law by Scottish Ministers and other Scottish authorities such as the Court of Session, through Acts of Sederunt, or the High Court of Justiciary, through Acts of Adjournal. SSIs were created by the Scotland Act 1998 and are used to exercise devolved powers.

Originally secondary legislation on Scottish matters was made in the UK Statutory Instrument series and the fact that the legislation applied to Scotland was denoted by a subseries of the UK series. When devolution occurred most of these functions were transferred to Scottish institutions and the SSI series was created. However there are still some matters which impact on Scotland that are reserved matters within the meaning of the Scotland Act; those powers are exercised by the UK ministers through the UK SI series.

Before devolution there were typically around 200 SIs a year in the Scotland subseries in the main UK series and now there are between 10 and 20 a year. There are typically around 500 or 600 SSIs made in a year.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Lists of Statutory Instruments of Scotland

External links

• Office of Public Sector Information