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 809 contributions
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
I am happy to take that point on board for future consultations. I am a great believer in such consultation. As you will be aware, my wife has multiple sclerosis, so accessibility to everything for disabled people is important to me. I will take the point on board and look at various other organisations that we can work with. On the positive side, with the ones that we have worked with, we have got good conclusions and also outcomes.
Can we do things better? That is always the case. Every day is a school day, and we will be able to do things better in the future. We will take your points on board, and, if there are any groups that you or members of the committee want to suggest, we will be quite happy to look at them.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
Yes. This might make me sound like a political geek, but personally I always find that bit quite exciting, because it means that we can work out how we can make things better. When something goes wrong, I see it as an opportunity to try to make it better. That might sound a bit cheesy, but it is always the way.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
As always, you make an articulate case. I agree that that would be interesting information for us to look at after the election.
You are correct in saying that the measure is all about the rehabilitation of those who are incarcerated and about bringing them back into society. We are trying to make that as simple and easy as possible.
I think that we should look at the detail, and I have already made a commitment to Ms White that we will look at the data when it comes in after next year鈥檚 election.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
I am sorry, Mr Mountain, but your sound is quite faint鈥擨 did not quite hear you.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
Now you are the voice of God.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
We will get back to the committee and confirm that detail to you, Mr Mountain.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
Once again, I rely on Iain鈥檚 expertise.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
In looking at the matter as a candidate and a former councillor, I would always say that you could spend more money on a campaign. However, you have to draw a line on what is fair for everyone, to make sure that there is a level playing field. The instrument gives us that opportunity.
When you look at the end of the previous Scottish parliamentary election, when we were finally allowed to go out, get involved and get back to some form of normal campaigning, we managed to get things moving and deliver leaflets. Personally I do not know of many local candidates in our area who used mailing to that extent. I did not do so myself but simply moved forward with the campaign as it was.
09:45We had the campaign laid out right from the start. We made sure that we were accounting for the fact that we were living in difficult times and that things would be a certain way. Was it a nervous time for me, as a candidate? It probably was. Indeed, halfway through the campaign, I was sitting in the house, starting to worry. However, we need to give the parties the opportunity to continue with these limits, and I think that they should be okay. If, after the next election, we get data further down the line that says otherwise, we will review the situation.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
Once again, it has been a pleasure.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
George Adam
I take your point on board. It was not yesterday that I was a councillor, Mr Mountain, but you should not let the white hair fool you. It was only 11 or 12 years ago.
I also take on board your comments about geographical differences. I am aware of that issue, but I ask Iain Hockenhull to talk about consultation with local authorities and councillors.