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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 1302 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
As I have said, the pupil equity fund and the Scottish attainment fund are important. There is also something to be said about the investment that the Government has put into our school estate and the different environments that are being created specifically for outdoor learning in a number of schools across Scotland. I would again touch on some of the visits that I have been on and some of the fantastic things that I have seen that are widening access to outdoor learning for all pupils.
However, I hear the member’s point about whether the bill might not be the way forward. I have already touched on the work of the outdoor learning strategic working group. It will be reporting to me by summer 2025. As I said, it is working on a range of different areas in relation to outdoor learning and how we can improve that and drive it forward.
Inspection is also an important driver for change. HM Inspectorate of Education is undertaking a review of the inspection frameworks, and work is being done to consider the learning for sustainability programme, of which outdoor learning is a key part. We are also working closely with educators in schools and other partners to improve the resources and guidance that are available to schools. That includes the development of new online training materials for outdoor education instructors.
The newly launched curriculum improvement cycle also provides an opportunity to ensure that the three-to-18 curriculum is designed and delivered to offer greater consistency in outdoor learning experiences across Scotland—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I am sorry, Mr Rennie, but I will have to ask my officials to clarify that for me.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I do not have it to hand, Mr Rennie.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I believe so.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I would need to see the detail around those specific local authorities.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I would need to understand some of the context around that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
I can bring in Gareth Wilks to speak more about how Disclosure Scotland has been engaging with organisations to date but, as I have highlighted and emphasised, the three-month period is when engagement will take place with a much higher sense of urgency, and I would expect any last-minute barriers or issues that organisations are facing to come to the forefront.
I invite Gareth to speak about the engagement to date.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
Yes. That is the case.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
That perhaps came up in previous evidence sessions. I am speaking about school level, but the proposal is to put things in statute while taking away the flexibility for local authorities and schools to decide what is best, either for their areas or for their pupils. That is probably another concern for me, and the matter was raised during a previous evidence session. Proposals were also made to ring fence funding—and that relates to Mr Greer’s points about Verity house.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Natalie Don-Innes
It would not stop that happening.