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: 8 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
I am sorry, Kirsty. We seem to be losing you again. Can you hear us?
We can always come back to you if your connection picks up. If you turn your camera off, that might improve your sound.
We can move on—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Before anybody answers that, Beverley Isdale and Kirsty Ramage asked to come in on your earlier point.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Before I bring in Gordon MacDonald to cover the final theme, I will ask a question. One thing that has come through, particularly in my constituency, is about the challenges of in-work poverty. In one family, both parents are working and paying a phenomenal amount for childcare; when they applied for a mortgage recently, it was refused because their childcare costs were so high. That has impacted their credit ratings, too. Have you picked up on that in your areas? I ask Beverley Isdale to comment, as she touched on in-work poverty.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
We have come to the end of our evidence session. I thank the witnesses for the evidence that they have provided today.
Next week, we will hear from two panels on employability programmes and education and training.
That concludes our public business. We will now move into private to consider the remaining items on the agenda.
11:20 Meeting continued in private until 11:34.Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
As no other panel member wants to come in, I will move on to theme 2. I call Katy Clark, who is joining us remotely. [Interruption.] Can you hear us okay, Katy?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
I will suspend the meeting until we get clarification on that.
09:45 Meeting suspended.Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Amendment 21, in the name of Jeremy Balfour, is in a group on its own.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Cabinet secretary, do you wish to wind up?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
As no members wish to comment on this group of amendments, I invite the cabinet secretary to comment on it.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Amendment 14, in the name of the cabinet secretary, is grouped with amendments 16 and 20. I ask the cabinet secretary to move amendment 14 and to speak to all the amendments in the group.