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 5714 contributions
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
You say that people are not allowed to release sick birds, but how do we track the behaviour of the people who have pheasants and their decision to release the birds or not?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Stephanie Fraser and Mike Burns want to come in.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thanks for flagging up that aspect, Hannah.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
It does not look as though anyone else wants to come in on that.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
We will move to Marie McNair, who joins us online.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thanks for that. It will be interesting to see what happens once we move into the delivery plan phase and the changes that come about from the private sector.
I just want to dig down into one particular policy area. We heard last week that there could be a conflict between renewable energy and wild land. I note that one of the tests for allowing renewable energy development on wild land is whether it supports the meeting of renewable energy targets, but concerns have been raised by Scottish Environment LINK and the John Muir Trust that all renewable energy developments, by their very nature, meet that test. Can you assure the committee that NPF4 strikes the correct balance between protecting wild land and meeting renewable energy targets, and can you provide more clarity on that issue?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that, Andy. I believe that Sophie Lawson would like to come in on these questions as well.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
We come to our second panel of witnesses. We are joined in person by Adam Stachura, who is head of policy and communications at Age Scotland. I might have mispronounced your last name. Online, we are joined by Henry Simmons, who is the chief executive of Alzheimer Scotland, and Hannah Tweed, who is the senior policy officer of the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. If those who are online indicate that you want to respond by putting an R in the chat box, I will make sure that we bring you in. Members will direct questions to start off.
I will begin by directing my first question to Hannah Tweed. This might be a question to which we get a response from all of you. I am interested in hearing the main problems with how social care is currently delivered. Do you agree that there is a postcode lottery in care delivery?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thanks for that. I ask Henry Simmons whether he has anything to add.
We cannot hear you, Henry. Hang on a minute. I am not sure what is going on. I will ask my other question while you are trying to figure that out, and we can come back to you once we get your audio sorted out.
The committee has had evidence sessions on the national care service, and we have heard from previous witnesses that the bill is a disproportionate solution to the challenges that we face. I am keen to hear your views on whether we need legislation to bring about improvements. I will start with Adam Stachura.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 29 November 2022
Ariane Burgess
One of the things that come to my mind is that part of the reason why the minister talked about the NCS being brought forward was to put accountability at the door of ministers. That would be part of why it is being brought in.