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 1452 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
We move to questions from Jeremy Balfour.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Fiona Collie would like to come in on that.
09:30Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thank you, Fiona. That is really helpful.
We have come to the end of our questions. I thank all our witnesses for taking part and sharing their expertise. I suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave and to allow us to set up for our next item of business. Thank you very much for joining us today.
09:52 Meeting suspended.Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
I will bring in Marie McNair, who joins us remotely.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
We will move on. I invite James Dornan, who has joined us remotely, to ask questions. Again, I say that we are really tight for time, so please be as concise as possible.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Our next item is an evidence session on draft regulations. The carer support payment will replace the carers allowance in Scotland. Next week, we will hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice on the regulations. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.
I welcome to the meeting Fiona Collie, the head of policy and public affairs, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Carers Scotland, who is joining us in the room. I also welcome Maggie Chiwanza, chief executive of the Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project; Judith Paterson, the interim co-chair of the Scottish Commission on Social Security; and Paul Traynor, the head of the Scottish young carers services alliance, Carers Trust Scotland. They are all joining us remotely. Good morning, and thank you all for accepting our invitation.
Before we proceed with our questions, there are a few things to point out about the format of the meeting. Please wait until I say your name, or the member asking the question does, before speaking. Do not feel that you have to answer every question, and if you have nothing new to add to what is said by others, that is perfectly okay. Members and witnesses online, please allow our broadcasting colleagues a few seconds to turn on your microphone before you start to speak. You can indicate with an R in the chat box on Zoom that you wish to come in on a question. I ask everyone to keep questions and answers as concise as possible.
I now invite members to ask questions in turn.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thanks very much. That was helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Maggie Chiwanza and Paul Traynor want to come in.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Before you move on, I think that Maggie Chiwanza wants to come in.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Collette Stevenson
Good morning, and welcome to the 21st meeting in 2023 of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. We have no apologies for today’s meeting. Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take agenda items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Do we agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.