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 2406 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
Thank you very much, Professor Muir. We move now to questions. I will start with some background questions, and I hope that we will benefit from hearing your answers. Why is the SQA broken beyond repair?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
How far back do you think the issue has existed?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
We need a genuine national discussion. That was a pretty strong endorsement of the first recommendation in the report, and I appreciate it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
Our session has gone on quite a bit longer than I promised, but our witnesses have given us a lot to think about. I thank you both for that and for your time this morning.
The public part of the meeting is now at an end.
11:47 Meeting continued in private until 12:18.Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
You rightly point out that one of the concerns that has been expressed—you address it in your report—is that a new body should not be simply a rebranded SQA, given the issues that you have raised.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
However, you would suggest that it would be a bad move to simply rehire the SQA’s existing senior leadership team for the new body, as that would undermine the confidence that people might have in the new body. Is that a fair comment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2022 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee.
We have received apologies from Ross Greer.
I welcome Graeme Dey, who is attending the committee for the first time as a committee substitute. Mr Dey, I invite you to declare any interests that are relevant to the remit of this committee.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
The Scottish Private Nurseries Association got in touch with us and raised the questions that Fergus Ewing is seeking answers on. As the instrument is subject to the negative procedure, we do not have a minister before the committee. We have not had time to get a satisfactory answer to the questions, which raise entirely legitimate concerns on the part of the sector.
I propose that we write to the minister and seek clarification of those matters. We can then decide, before the appropriate deadline, how to proceed. Is the committee content with that approach?
Members indicated agreement.
09:17 Meeting suspended.Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
I turn to Stephanie Callaghan.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Stephen Kerr
Why could we not have this discussion and put something on a shelf that we could later pull off the shelf when it was needed and allow Parliament at that moment to pass it? Parliament worked well during the pandemic. Those of us who were not in Parliament then were looking in, and we saw Parliament working well—collegiately and on a basis of collaboration. It worked. If we could now have the advantage of having something on the shelf that we could pull off the shelf when needed, why would the Government object to that? That seems sensible, and it would be in line with the recommendations of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner.