Mu Phàrlamaid na h-Alba

You are encouraged to use and re-use the information available under this licence freely and flexibly, with only a few conditions.

Using information under this licence

Use of copyright and database right material expressly made available under this licence (the ‘information’) indicates your acceptance of the terms and conditions below.

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the information, subject to the conditions below.

This licence does not affect your freedom under fair dealing or fair use or any other copyright or database right exceptions and limitations.

You are free to:

• copy, publish, distribute and transmit the information
• adapt the information
• exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially, for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application.

If you do any of the above, you must:

• acknowledge the source of the Information by including the following attribution statement and, where possible, providing a link to this licence: (Contains information licensed under the Scottish Parliament Copyright Licence)

These are important conditions of this licence and if you fail to comply with them the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the SPCB, will end automatically. 

Exemptions

This licence does not cover:

• personal data in the Information
• information that has not been accessed by way of publication or disclosure under information access legislation including the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 by or with the consent of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body
• the SPCB's Corporate Identity
• third-party rights the SPCB is not authorised to license
• other intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks and design rights
• identity documents.

Non-endorsement

This licence does not grant you any right to use the information in a way that suggests any official status or that the SPCB endorses you or your use of the information. In particular, specific terms and conditions relate to the reuse of downloadable files such as images and video footage which states that they are: 

• not to be used in connection with party political purposes
• not to be used in connection with advertising endorsement.

No warranty

The information is licensed ‘as is’ and the SPCB excludes all representations, warranties, obligations and liabilities in relation to the Information to the maximum extent permitted by law. The SPCB is not liable for any errors or omissions in the information and shall not be liable for any loss, injury or damage of any kind caused by its use and does not guarantee the continued supply of the Information.

Governing law

This licence is governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Information Provider has its principal place of business, unless otherwise specified by the Information Provider.

Definitions

In this licence, the terms below have the following meanings:

• ‘Information’ means information protected by copyright or by database right (for example, literary and artistic works, content, data and source code) offered for use under the terms of this licence.
• ‘Use’ means doing any act which is restricted by copyright or database right, whether in the original medium or in any other medium, and includes without limitation distributing, copying, adapting, modifying as may be technically necessary to use it in a different mode or format.
• ‘You’, ‘you’ and ‘your’ means the natural or legal person, or body of persons corporate or incorporate, acquiring rights in the Information (whether the Information is obtained directly from the Licensor or otherwise) under this licence.

About the Open Government Licence

The Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) has developed the Open Government Licence as a tool to enable information providers in the public sector to license the use and re-use of their Information under a common open licence. The Controller invites public sector bodies owning their own copyright and database rights to permit the use of their Information under this licence.

The Controller of HMSO has authority to license information subject to copyright and database right owned by the Crown. The extent of the Controller’s offer to license this information under the terms of this licence is set out in the UK Government Licensing Framework.

This Scottish Parliament Licence is aligned with OGLv3.0

The Controller of HMSO may, from time to time, issue new versions of the Open Government Licence. If you are already using Information under a previous version of the Open Government Licence, the terms of that licence will continue to apply.

Further context, best practice and guidance can be found in the UK Government Licensing Framework section on The National Archives website.

The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) complies with the requirements of the Re-use of Public Sector Information (Amendment) Regulations 2015 by:

• Encouraging re-use of the information we publish by implementing the Scottish Parliament Copyright Licence.
• The Scottish Parliament licence means you can re-use the information we publish so long as you attribute the information to the Scottish Parliament and comply with the terms and conditions of the licence and the requirements of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
• Providing datasets in a machine-readable format covering all parliamentary information that can usefully be provided as open data. Datasets are already available, including those containing information on motions, questions, answers and petitions. Access open data at the Scottish Parliament

The Re-use (Amendment) Regulations 2015 require public bodies to define their “public task” setting out the body’s core role and functions.

The Scottish Parliament was established under the Scotland Act 1998 and its main functions are:

• to hold the Scottish Government to account through oral and written questions and through scrutiny of its policies in the committees
• to make laws on devolved matters by examining, amending and voting on Bills and to scrutinise subordinate legislation made by the Scottish Ministers
• to debate important topical issues
• to conduct inquiries and publish reports

The Re-use (Amendment) Regulations 2015 require public bodies to provide an asset register. An information asset is information that a public body produces, holds or disseminates that is of interest or value to itself and potentially to re-users and an information asset register is a register of these information assets.

The SPCB is responsible for ensuring that the Parliament is provided with the property, staff and services required for the Parliament’s purpose. To carry out these functions the SPCB considers and makes decisions on a wide range of issues to do with the running of the Parliament including:

• the allocation of the budget
• staffing and the use and security of parliamentary facilities at Holyrood.

It is impractical to make a distinction between the information held by the Scottish Parliament and the SPCB and so the information covered by our public task refers to both the Scottish Parliament and the SPCB.