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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 1231 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
I would have to bring in an official to comment on the legal status, but I would say that, in line with keeping the Promise and the UNCRC, we need to ensure that we are balancing the rights of all children equally. I appreciate from Ruth Maguire’s question that it would seem that there are concerns about whether that is happening in relation to victims, but in terms of—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
I believe that I alluded to this in my opening remarks. As I advised in previous sessions, we had used the lower end of the scale in that respect, and we have now taken the maximum. Also, in the previous financial memorandum, we used the cut-off of 17.5 years, and we have now taken that up to 18 years. We have probably overconsidered, as it were, how many additional hearings there will be. However, we have taken the absolute maximalist approach and, as I said, have taken it up to the full age of 18.
There are, therefore, two reasons for the increase. The first is that, in the first financial memorandum, we took the lower end of the scale, which we are now changing. Equally, we have moved the age up to 18 to address the issue.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 14 September 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
I am very switched on to the challenges. I know that the committee has heard evidence on the issue, which has been raised with me in various meetings that I have held with key stakeholders and organisations. In the programme for government, as the member will be aware, the Scottish Government is committing to increasing pay to £12 an hour for early learning and childcare professionals working in the private, voluntary and independent sector who are delivering funded provision in early learning. That is a really important step. We will also expand the existing recruitment and retention pilots for childminders to grow that part of the workforce by 1,000 by 2026-27. Those two actions, coupled together, are critical steps towards addressing some of the issues around recruitment and retention.
I am also involved in further work. I will work closely with our partners, particularly the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Social Services Council, to consider a robust regulatory and qualifications framework for school-age childcare. The pilot areas have already been mentioned. The work in the pilot areas recognises that the school-age childcare sector needs a varied workforce to meet the differing needs of children and families.
We have work going on with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the findings of the joint Scottish Government-COSLA review of sustainable rates, which has also been raised with me in various meetings. I am sure that the member is switched on to that. Those findings will be published later in the year, and we will determine what actions are taken as a result.
Those are important first steps, but there is further work under way.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 14 September 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
Yes.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 14 September 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
Thank you for the question. I do not have to tell the member about the difficult public spending environment that we find ourselves in.
I completely appreciate the member’s concerns. We are currently investing more than £1 billion in delivering childcare in 2023-24. As we have discussed this morning, we are announcing plans for further expansion, and it is vital for funding to continue. On investment in childcare, the member will be aware that budgets are set through the budget process, and I would not be able to foresee or comment on that at the moment.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 14 September 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
High-quality early learning and childcare has a positive impact on all children’s outcomes, and evidence shows that it has a greater positive impact on children living in poverty. It can also support parents to work, train or study—as the committee has heard during evidence—and it can have a direct impact on the drivers of child poverty through supporting household incomes.
In relation to our current and previous offer, modelling published by the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland estimated that, at 600 hours, funded ELC lifted more than 10,000 adults and children out of poverty. It also notes that the expansion to 1,140 hours will have an even bigger impact. As Mr O’Kane referred to, our programme for government sets out how we will go even further.
If families paid for the existing 1,140 offer themselves, it would cost them around £5,000 per child per year, which is a huge amount of money. Independent research shows that 97 per cent of parents are satisfied with the quality of funded ELC. A range of on-going work is focused on delivering a robust and accurate evidence base and evaluation of the impact of 1,140 hours, including an economic evaluation of the expansion.
The baseline phases of the Scottish study of ELC were published in 2019-20. The fourth phase is on track to begin data collection in October. That will give us a clearer idea of the impact that our current offer is having, which will be further looked at as the programme is expanded.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 14 September 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
I will refer to my official for that kind of in-depth answer.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
It can be difficult to quantify those future costs. However, I will bring in my official Tom McNamara to clarify the point.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
That will be based on discussions that take place with the working group.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Natalie Don-Innes
Yes—absolutely. I understand that they have raised those points in other sessions with other committees, so it would be best for them to raise those in the place where we can take action on them.