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: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
I spoke to a prison officer who echoed much of what you said about the state of the facilities at Barlinnie. They speculated about how much money is currently being spent on it. You might have referred, in passing, to how much is being spent on keeping it functional. Do you have figures? Is that throwing good money after bad, or is there no real option and nothing else that can be done?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
When is that expected?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
I will quickly summarise what you have said about Kilmarnock prison. It is being transferred into public ownership. Currently, it is very well run. You believe that the decision was ideological.
Earlier this year, I had a conversation with some prison officers who represent staff at Kilmarnock. They said that it costs in the region of £20,000 per annum to keep a prisoner there, whereas it costs about £38,000 to keep a prisoner in the public estate. They also said that Serco had offered to build a 300-bed replacement facility as part of a continuation of the contract, but the Government rejected that. They could not understand the logic behind that.
Is the deal done, or is there any way of going back on it or revisiting it?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
You have referred to Audit Scotland and the cost of the transfer. Aside from staff wages, one cost that has been overlooked is pension costs. Are you able to quantify that in any way? Have you spoken to Audit Scotland directly about that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
This is probably impossible, but can you provide a figure?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
I have a question about your submission, which refers to a growing cohort of prisoners from serious organised crime groups. That brings about particular problems, not least the pressure that is brought to bear on staff to smuggle contraband, the risk of increased violence and the need to keep such prisoners apart. My understanding is that, at the moment, two organised crime groups are sent to two separate prisons, but your submission calls for consideration of
“an SOCG strategy for accommodation.”
What might that look like and what has been the SPS’s response to your suggestion?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
Just for clarification, what is MARSOC?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
It is worth noting that the letter has been with us for almost two months but that we have been unable to refer to it until now. Its contents cover the latest twist in the malicious prosecution scandal. I was interested to read the confirmation that £15 million has been paid to the administrators but that that has been done with “no admission of liability” by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
Last week, we heard from the interim Crown Agent, John Logue, who said that the pay-outs now stand at £51 million. We should put it on the record that the £15 million mentioned in the letter is part of that £51 million rather than on top of it. Mr Logue also confirmed that the Scottish Government has effectively signed a blank cheque for any future pay-outs. Of course, that has happened against a background of warnings about extreme budget cuts being made across the justice system. It is also worth noting that we were told about the £15 million pay-out only because it had been reported by a newspaper.
The entire scandal has spanned the reigns of three Lord Advocates, starting with that of Frank Mulholland and moving on to that of James Wolffe and now that of Dorothy Bain. It has caused significant reputational damage to the Scottish justice system. However, there appears to be a strange and worrying lack of meaningful contrition, explanation and accountability. Should we consider calling the two previous Lord Advocates to give evidence about what has happened?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
Is that the first time that you have even considered the likelihood of having to close a facility?
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Russell Findlay
Convener, may I also ask about Kilmarnock?