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 350 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 May 2024
Roz McCall
We have had suggestions about support for mobility and various other options. Would you be willing to look at those?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 16 May 2024
Roz McCall
Thank you. That is helpful. Will you explain further why the six-month qualifying period cannot be shortened? How does that meet the needs of older people who are diagnosed with long-term conditions?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
Does the information from the Scottish Government—whose action plan it is—meet what you are doing? Does it dovetail properly, or is it just not hitting the mark?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
Last, but by no means least, I invite Justina Murray to answer.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
The question that I asked was about what more we can do to shine a light on that and start to discuss it more.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
I appreciate the answer, minister. I know that I put you on the spot a little bit there, and I am sure that you will have an update for me when I return to the issue at our next meeting.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
Good morning. The session has been very interesting so far. Thank you for that.
Earlier on, there were comments about stigma and the issues that it is causing, especially when it comes to people moving forward and seeking the support that is already there. Development of a national stigma action plan was one recommendation, and a rapid implementation of that plan was requested. The two important words for me there are “rapid” and “action”.
I am interested, especially in light of the earlier submissions, in how that is going. I am interested in your views on the progress on the action plan so far. How effective has the action been? Is it working? What more has to be done? Would you say that what is being done is rapid?
I will put Kirsten Horsburgh on the spot first, if that is okay.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
That is brilliant. Thank you. I like a short, succinct answer, especially when I ask four questions in a oner.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Roz McCall
Yes, I have another question on stigma. I know that this was prior to your being in post, minister, but, during the evidence that the committee took at the previous joint evidence session, the then minister said:
“I anticipate that, by the time we go into the spring, we will have a lot more information about what the stigma action plan is going to be.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting), 2 November 2023; c6.]
Of course, recommendation 10 of the task force was to produce a stigma action plan and to rapidly put that into force. The earlier panel of witnesses gave evidence that there is a bit of a disconnect and unclear communication, that the process is certainly not rapid and that stigma is still a strong factor in preventing people from moving forward to get the support that is available and that they need.
Therefore, can you update us on where the action plan on stigma is moving and how quickly it will be in place? Will you put some meat on the bones rather than saying that it is out for consultation? Can we have a little bit more information, please?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Roz McCall
There is adequate scaling up.