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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 3500 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
My final question is about timescales. Some reform can move relatively quickly, but other reform takes longer. What are your broad timescales for the priority areas of reform that you are seeking to deliver?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Rona Mackay, you wanted to come in on that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you for that comprehensive overview. We do not have time to follow up on that this morning but, for me, one of the issues is the ability of officers to transfer the care of a person elsewhere. Nine times out of 10, that will be to health and social care services. I am very interested in what level of engagement health and social care has participated in with Police Scotland, because I see that as being absolutely key, but I am sure that we will come back to that further down the line.
I will bring in a couple of members for some brief supplementary questions, after which I will have to bring the session to a close.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
We will have a very final quick question from Russell Findlay.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Good morning, and welcome to the 35th and final meeting in 2023 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Pauline McNeill.
Our main item of business is to take evidence from the chief constable of Police Scotland, Jo Farrell, on her vision and priorities for Police Scotland. I welcome the chief constable, who is joined by Jane Connors, deputy chief constable for crime and operational support, and James Gray, chief financial officer of Police Scotland.
I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for this session.
I invite the chief constable to make a short opening statement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
That brings me to my next question, which is about remodelling and the reform agenda within the context of the overall justice system. What, if any, are the challenges in delivering on your review of the policing model while bearing in mind that you are one part of a broader justice system?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Yes, of course.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Yes.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
We are over time. I will come in, if I may, with a final question for Stuart Munro, and then we will draw the session to a close. The question is about the survey of members that was undertaken by the Law Society. It is my understanding that more than 70 per cent of members who responded believed that the not proven verdict should be retained. Will you expand a little on the survey and the results, including the minority view, which obviously consisted of around 30 per cent?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Audrey Nicoll
We move to our second panel of witnesses. From the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, I welcome Laura Buchan, who is procurator fiscal for policy and engagement, and Alisdair Macleod, who is principal procurator fiscal depute in the policy division. I intend to allow around 60 minutes for the session.
I will open up with a general question on the jury research that has been undertaken in Scotland. Laura, what weight do you give to the findings of the available research, including the Scottish jury research, as part of the evidence relating to the proposals in part 4 of the bill?