The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 674 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
It answers my question to a certain extent. What I am looking for is similar to what John Mason was asking about earlier with regard to how we drive cultural change. Some of that is structural—who is on the board and so on—but it is also about the approach to engaging with learners and teachers.
I accept that there is provision for a learner interest committee, but that will be quite small compared with the spread of learners across Scotland. How can the board and other bodies within qualifications Scotland be made more accessible and welcoming to learners and teachers to ensure that on-going feedback can be taken forward?
09:45Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
Good morning. With the previous witnesses, we had a discussion about the good things in the bill that could be separated from other things to allow us to take a longer time to look at the more structural reforms. Anne’s law is one of those things, and there is a lot of focus on people who access services and carers, relating to advocacy, short breaks and so on. Are there other things in the “good stuff” category that the witnesses want to progress? Many people have said that they could be progressed without the bill.
Frank Reilly is nodding the most, so I will come to him first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
Good morning. The theme of my questions is everything else that we have not already spoken about, so I apologise if it turns into a random run around the bill.
So far, we have had a chat about the unions now having withdrawn their support for the bill. Some of them are looking for the bill to be withdrawn, although other organisations are still in the works to try to make it better.
There are obviously some good things in the bill in relation to those receiving care, such as Anne’s law, the right to short breaks and advocacy provisions. Do the witnesses believe that we are at the stage at which we need to go back to the drawing board on some of the reorganisation and some of the provisions around fair work, but that we also need to make progress on the good things so that we do not lose any more of the good will that is left around the co-design that has already happened? I absolutely appreciate what people have said so far about the workforce’s input into co-design and how the workforce is feeling. On the other side of that, there are people who receive care and their families who have put their time in and have seen something come from that. Do the witnesses support a position in which we progress the good things where we can and have a wider conversation around what whole-scale reform looks like in more detail?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
We have had conversations with Alison Bavidge previously about how heavily legislated for social work is. Are we getting to the stage where we have reinvented the wheel for social work so many times that it is no longer a wheel? Do we need to look at how much legislation on governance there is and get it an awful lot tighter so that the job and the work can be done on the ground?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
We also have a patchy picture across the country in relation to which services, including children’s services and justice social work services, the local authority delivers or does not deliver. There are concerns from stakeholders—I am sure that some of you share the concerns—about how it works in practice for those who do not currently have all the services being delivered by the local authority. Do you have views on how we square that circle, for a start, and on whether children’s and justice services should be included in the bill?
10:15Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
This question is for Colin Poolman and Katie MacGregor, whose organisations are still working to make the bill better. What amendments would you like to see being made to the bill? Obviously, on the union side of things, people are absolutely on board with good stuff such as collective bargaining, but are there things on the workforce side that your workforces are looking for?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
That is interesting, thanks.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
That is useful, thank you. The inconsistent nature of integration across the country of children’s and justice services, as well as the geographical spread, has also been raised.
Pauline Lunn mentioned the different model in Highland earlier. Given what is in the bill, the potential for children’s and justice services to come in and the issue with the lead agency in Highland, how confident are you that the current provisions will deliver what they need to? What else do we need in the bill? Do we need more detail? Do we need to go back and take longer?
Many organisations, including yours, I am sure, have involved themselves in co-design processes, and I am keen that we do not burn all that good will and good engagement. How do we get to a point where people have confidence that the bill will deliver the change that has been needed for the past decade and a half?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
Pauline Lunn was nodding the most next, so I will go to her next if that is okay.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 September 2024
Gillian Mackay
That is great. What work is being done to reduce some of the wait times? As well as young people who have now had their treatment pathways changed because of a decision that is outwith their control, many other young people are waiting a very long time to access services.
09:30