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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 853 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
I will pick up on the immediate point about the budget situation. The starting point for colleges next year will be slightly better—only slightly better, I stress—than the finishing point for this year. As you alluded, changes were made during the year to the budget that was originally set out. Against what the colleges have ended up with this financial year, we believe that the starting point for next year will be slightly better.
I recognise that there is inflation and so on. However, on your point, having less money in real terms—I accept that that is the case—does not help the situation, but I have to balance the circumstances and we are where we are with the budget that is available to us. Over the next month or so, the SFC will be going through a process, not just with colleges but with universities. We are looking at how that financial settlement is delivered in a way that is—you might say—the least harmful but, certainly, in a way that better facilitates addressing the challenges that they face.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
With respect, convener, when I was a member of this committee, I remember my predecessors sitting here and making the point that, for that particular purpose and for others, the money would have to be found from somewhere.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
To be fair, the then cabinet secretary was not in a position to do that at the time.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
Happy new year to everyone. I very much welcome the chance to speak about the reform agenda, not least because it affords us the opportunity to explore the topic in far greater detail than we could when I made a statement in the chamber last month.
As I said in the statement, our thinking is quite progressed on some aspects and a bit less so on others. I make no apology for taking time to consider all aspects of what James Withers has called for. I have spent the past six months or so very much in listening mode, as I wanted to develop more fully my understanding of what works well and what needs to change—dramatically or to a degree—to furnish us with a skills and post-16 education landscape that is agile and fit for the future.
I also wanted to look at the practicalities and to interrogate possible unintended consequences—not to find a reason not to proceed but to ensure that, when we proceed, a clear road is ahead. I am sure that members will appreciate that, as we have gone into more detail, more questions have been generated. However, our thinking and broad planning are now quite well progressed.
Having said that, I remain very much in listening mode. If committee members—collectively or individually—have constructive ideas to contribute, I am very much open to considering them. I make it clear that we do not need change simply because it is required; we need to deliver the right change, with the correct sequencing. That is perhaps the most important overarching element. Some of what is required will take time—especially when legislation or significant repositioning of staff is required—but I hope that in my December statement I indicated elements of our direction of travel. We can do much to declutter the landscape and refine our offer without waiting for structural change.
As I am here to answer the committee’s questions and listen to members’ ideas about this hugely important and wide-ranging subject, that is probably enough from me to begin with.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
You raise a good point. We are taking account of as much of that as possible. We will not proceed with what is contradictory, but there are a lot of common strands. An example comes from the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board’s work on how to tackle gender-related discrepancies in our apprenticeship offering. Instead of deploying that as a stand-alone piece of work, we will weave it into the reform agenda, which will pay greater dividends than will having that as something else that we are going to do.
The sequencing of a lot of this is challenging, because certain things need to happen to accommodate other things. That is probably the largest piece of work that the team is developing to ensure that, when we get to the endgame, we have done everything in the right order. The committee will appreciate that the work is complex. I am happy to commit to updating the committee regularly as we proceed, so that the committee understands fully what we are doing and when.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
In the immediate term, yes—that is a fair assumption. However, there is an opportunity for colleges to get more into the commercial space and to work with employers to generate more income. On your point about the resource allocation, I note the work that we are doing on the tripartite group. What can we do to give colleges a bit of flexibility to operate in a different way if—I stress this point—they believe that that will help them to cope with the current pressures? That is another piece of work that is going on.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
As I said, those flexibilities were not provided during my tenure as minister. I was quite open with the committee that the previous set of flexibilities that were provided had not been fully exploited. That is not a criticism of anyone; it is just the reality. Those flexibilities remain in place, and we are now better placed to exploit and take advantage of them.
We are in a dialogue about what more needs to be done. Lots of little things could be done to help colleges to operate more freely, and that is driving a lot of the conversations that are taking place. As I said, if we get to the point at which there is something tangible to report, I will, with the agreement of the other participants, write to the committee to outline that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
There are a number of strands. We need to do a lot of structural things to deliver on our agenda. Essentially, we want to make the learner’s experience better than it is and to ensure that employers have better access to the skills that they require to deliver for the economy and to give young people in particular sustainable employment. Those are our ambitions. In however many years’ time, the judgment will be made about how successfully we have achieved that. One reason why I have been taking a bit of time to look at unintended consequences and practicalities is to save time as we move to the implementation phase, because we will have determined the hurdles that we have to overcome first.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
You will appreciate that that will evolve. I am probably being a bit conservative on the timeline, but I hope that we will have tangible information by mid-March on the first elements that we have committed to, such as consolidating apprenticeship funding in one locality and consolidating student support funding in one locality. As a starting point, I hope to share publicly what that will look like by mid-March at the latest.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
Two things are at play. First, pilot projects are run to identify their worth. Most projects are Europe-based, but there are others—for example, in South Africa. I recognise that we need an assessment of that fairly quickly.
I keep stressing—and I mean this—that the relationship and the dialogue between us and the university sector are quite good. For example, we co-designed the international engagement strategy, which we will launch shortly. I will not sit here today and say that we will do X or Y without having input from university and college partners in the context of the pilot scheme.
I do not want to avoid the question. I would be happy to write to the committee with more detail in due course, but that is the path that we have gone down.
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