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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 1673 contributions
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
I have two observations about what has been said so far and two quick points to make.
Katy Clark is bang on in respect of the fire service. The acting chief fire officer told us that he needed something like £0.5 billion just to bring infrastructure up to standard as a result of year after year of not having enough money to do so.
I also totally understand Jamie Greene’s point. Although the cabinet secretary did not state that it was his intent to reduce police numbers, that may nonetheless be the outcome. I think that we have agreed a way to deal with that.
I have a point about the Scottish Police Authority. The cabinet secretary said that there is £45.5 million
“for investment in police assets including the estate, fleet and technology.”
That is not a lot of money to pay for all of that.
In December, Police Scotland said that it would finally be rolling out body-worn cameras for its officers. Police Scotland is the only force in the United Kingdom not to have such cameras—except for a few hundred for specialist firearms officers.
I want to understand that. That was described in the media as a £20 million programme over five years. Does it follow that, in 2023-24, £4 million will go towards providing body-worn cameras? I would like some clarity on the speed with which the body-worn cameras will be delivered, because that is crucial to helping police officers primarily but also to public confidence. It would be worth getting a breakdown of the numbers and an explanation. I know that spending that money is an operational decision, but the media stuff is not very clear.
My second point is about the Scottish Prison Service. As far as I can see, there is no reference whatsoever to the fact that HMP Kilmarnock is now, or is on the cusp of becoming, under the direct control of the Government, with all the costs associated with that, and that HMP Addiewell is about to follow. The cabinet secretary’s response mentions the
“costs of private sector contracts”,
but I do not know whether that means contracts such as the one that we touched on for the provision of food and dairy produce to prisoners. Running HMP Kilmarnock and HMP Addiewell will end up costing a huge sum of money. There will be staff costs, the responsibility for infrastructure and maintenance, and staff pensions. It would be useful to know where that money will come from and how much that will cost.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
What options are available to us? Can we lodge some kind of motion?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
There may be things that I have not seen, but the media report in December said that it would take five years. That is a long time, if it is going to take that long for all officers to have the kit.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
Many other police forces have moved on to second-generation and sometimes third-generation kit, which is even more efficient.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
If it needs to be acted on now, can we do that just now?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Russell Findlay
Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Russell Findlay
My final question is about bail. One of the inevitable consequences—indeed, the intended consequence—of the bill is that there will be more people on bail and, therefore, greater reliance on supervised bail, using measures such as electronic monitoring. We heard evidence from academics who take the view that two days under such conditions should have a direct trade-off, in effect, for any future sentencing, with a ratio of two days under such conditions to one day in custody. Do you agree with that? Does the bill factor that in in any way, or is it not part of it?
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Russell Findlay
It is highbrow.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Russell Findlay
I understand that Victim Support Scotland produced considered evidence, some of which was supportive of the intent, but it remains that it believes that the outcome will be that more people being bailed equals more people committing crime. Indeed, the Scottish Police Federation’s position was different in parts from what Police Scotland had to say about it. It is worth putting those views to you on the record.
11:30Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 February 2023
Russell Findlay
Will the bill state that? Will it prescribe it or will it be entirely discretionary?