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: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I am happy for us to incorporate that into correspondence to the cabinet secretary. Obviously, the criminal justice reform bill is coming forward, and I would be very surprised if the new contract and the process around that were not incorporated into the bill.
Are members happy with what we have proposed?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I will pull things together. Very few such trials have been undertaken despite the support for the notion of virtual trials, and members have highlighted some relevant points. We need a much more substantial evidence base. It is concerning that momentum is waning, if that is the case. The fact is that the reality seems to be at odds with what is happening in our court system.
There are good points to raise about budget implications for virtual trials. Issues such as the quality of connections are practical matters, but they are important nonetheless. It is good to see better use of a virtual option for taking evidence on commission; that was highlighted in some of the correspondence that we received.
For next steps, I propose鈥擨 am not sure whether all members will agree with this鈥攖hat we note the discussion that we have had today and note that the matter will be the subject of further consideration in the forthcoming criminal justice reform bill. However, Jamie Greene鈥檚 last comments suggest that he would prefer to go back to the SCTS with some further questions.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thanks, Jamie. I am happy to look at an opportunity to do that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
On the point about monitoring the remand population, your impression is probably correct. I am certainly happy to consider some work around monitoring remand populations outwith the scope of the work on the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill, which will conclude shortly. I am happy to consider that point further, because it is clearly a pressing issue that we have been grappling with.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
It is one of our coming agenda items.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
I see that no one else wants to come in.
I thank members for their comments, which are all perfectly valid. I will try to summarise the points that have been made. Russell Findlay raised some key issues around the commentary on police suicides and some of the previous responses that we have had, including the correspondence from the Crown Office on police suicides.
Jamie Greene proposed that we go back to Police Scotland to ask further questions, including on the Scottish Police Federation鈥檚 comments. Please correct me if I have picked that up wrongly鈥擨 have been scribbling down notes. Some other issues have been raised, too.
Part of the reason for the actions that have been set out in paper 4 is that I do not want us to simply get into a chain of correspondence. However, in view of the comments and points that have been made, I ask members to indicate whether they are happy for us to go back to Police Scotland on the specific issues that have been highlighted. Are members happy for us to take that away as an action?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you, Pauline. The issue that you raise about police officer abstractions for court is a very important one. For example, in the north-east division recently, I think that 150 officers were cited for court on a Monday morning. That number will reduce with trials going off, but that is a lot of officers and it has huge implications for operational policing.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you for that permission. Are members agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
We move swiftly on to our next agenda item, which is access to court transcripts and consideration of the Scottish Government鈥檚 response on that issue, which we recently raised. I refer members to paper 6. Once again, I invite any views from members on the correspondence.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you for that. Jamie Greene wants to come in.