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 1673 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Russell Findlay
Justina Murray, some of your written evidence was similar to what you have said—perhaps even stronger. One part that jumped out at me was:
“Families repeatedly find there is no accountability in the system – no-one is accountable for repeated service and system failures, and their concerns are just dismissed”,
and that is on top of the implementation gap, which is a neat way of describing the difference between all the millions of words saying what we should be doing and what is actually happening. This might be a bit of a broad question, but why is there a gap? Is it about money or inflexibility? What can be done to improve delivery?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Russell Findlay
Good afternoon, minister. When was the last time that you spoke with anyone from Police Scotland or the Crown Office in respect of drugs consumption rooms?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
My next question is simply on something that I am curious about. The policy note says that section 31 of the 2003 act
“will allow persons in the UK to give evidence via telephone to a court in any of these countries.”
Would that sort of thing still be done by telephone?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
So, on those other cases, it is a matter of “Watch this space.” What about the question whether it could potentially derail DASA if those cases were successfully appealed?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
The policy note says that an instrument in similar terms has been made for the rest of the United Kingdom. What are the differences between that instrument and this one? Are there any?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
So, we will see that within three months.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
Thank you. My second question is for DCS Faulds. The findings of the research from the University of Edinburgh that was referred to in earlier evidence, in which 22 victims talked about their experiences, was fairly critical. Dr Houghton, who is still with us in the public gallery, described it as “unremittingly grim.”
Regarding the police, the research describes the process as “inconsistent” and says that
“victims and witnesses were required to proactively collect and push for particular evidence to be considered.”
I am sure that you are aware of evidence of that nature.
I completely understand that everything revolves around funding. The chief constable has already stated that the current policing model is “unsustainable” on the basis of the funding model available to the police.
Your written evidence says that about 13,000 officers have had core training and 600 have had champions training. Earlier, the convener asked what was happening next and whether there were any deadlines or targets. Can you indicate whether that training is now back on track, what the targets are and where you are likely to go from here?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
It would potentially be of value to consider that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
I am dealing with a case in which a woman’s partner is seeking legal aid for civil action that she believes has the ultimate goal of removing their child from the UK, and there are parallel criminal proceedings. I have made representation to the Scottish Legal Aid Board to try and point out the background to that. She feels totally isolated, and that the system is against her and is facilitating what is going on. I suppose that that speaks to your point.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Russell Findlay
Right—so it is more about the application of DASA.