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 3539 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Right. We will have to agree to differ on that. I do not think that that is the real reason, but we shall leave it at that. If others want to explore the issue, they can.
There remain a number of significant potential budget pressures that have not yet been fully quantified, including pay agreements for key public sector staff groups that have yet to be settled. Other than pay increases, what are the potential budget pressures?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Okay. Thank you for that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you for that opening statement. As is traditional, I will start with some open questions before we move to questions from colleagues.
You began by saying that the bill’s stated purpose is to improve the quality and consistency of social services in Scotland, and it has been the view of everyone throughout the evidence sessions that that is what we want to see. However, why is this particular structure the best way of delivering that? If certain issues are affecting consistency and quality of care in some local authorities, why is that is not being addressed?
The committee has tried to tease out that issue in its questions, but we have not had all the answers that we would have liked. As I asked when Ms Bennett and Ms Bell previously gave evidence, why not name and shame the local authorities that are not stepping up to the mark to deliver the services that they should be delivering instead of creating this new all-encompassing structure?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Obviously, though, if the VAT situation is not resolved, we will have the same situation as with the police and fire services, whereby millions of pounds have been contributed to the Treasury in VAT when it could be much better spent on local services.
One issue that came out in the evidence from your officials was that not all staff may transfer. We are talking about a national service, but some staff may stay with the local authorities and some may move. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
One of the difficulties is that, according to COSLA, SOLACE, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountability and so on, the consultation came out without any prior discussion and, as a result, they were caught on the hop. Moreover, it came out over the summer when they were trying to prioritise recovery from Covid, and they also felt that the consultation period was only the standard one when, with something of such magnitude, they should have been given a lot more time to develop and discuss issues with the Scottish Government and to present more detailed responses.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Only 3 per cent inflation is built into the financial memorandum but, as we know, the rate of inflation is already 10 per cent, and you indicated to the committee this morning that the Scottish Government intends to fully fund the bill and those changes. Will it be fully funded at the prevailing rate of inflation, and what do you think the impact will be on other local government services?
There seems to be a contradiction with the resource spending review that we had in May, because there is going to be a flat financial cash settlement but, with inflation at 10 per cent, that means significant reductions in service delivery and staff numbers, yet we are going to have this service that is apparently going to deliver more effectively for more people. There may be some savings, but initially there will be significant costs in setting up this apparatus. Is the Scottish Government committed to inflation proofing the bill?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Yes, but the current rate of inflation is 10 per cent. The point of my question was whether the bill will be inflation proofed. There is not much point in saying that we will deliver the funding for the bill if, at the end of the day, the reality of inflation is not reflected in that. Inflation was at 6.2 or 6.3 per cent, and it is now 10 per cent. We are already building that in and, as I have mentioned, the Deputy First Minister had to make a difficult decision with regard to the funding of the bill only last week. How can we be sure that we end up with a service that is delivered in the way that the Scottish Government and service users want?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
It has been a long session, minister. In time-honoured fashion, though, I will finish up with a couple more questions. I have many—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
—but to spare you and the committee, I will just ask a couple for clarification.
Co-design has been mentioned on many occasions. In her evidence, Donna Bell said:
“The approach has been almost universally welcomed by people who want to be involved in shaping the national care service and the delivery of services that they use now or are likely to use in the future. That was reinforced at the national care service forum a few weeks ago.”
She also said:
“The bill sets out a framework for change. The detail relies very much on co-design—co-design with people with lived experience of, and people who deliver, community health and care support. Our partners and stakeholders will also play a vital role in that co-design.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 25 October 2022; c 2, 6.]
I have two questions in relation to that. First, what is the timescale for the delivery of co-design?
Secondly, as you have mentioned, a plethora of individuals and partners will be involved in this work. However, the unions and organisations such as COSLA have already claimed that engagement has not been what they would have anticipated it to be. How do we ensure that we do end up not with something to which the saying “A camel is a horse designed by a committee” would apply but with something that works? How do you weigh up what stakeholders say? How do you balance the experience of a care user and the institutional experience of an organisation such as COSLA in order to get this right? I realise that such an approach was used successfully in the development of Social Security Scotland.
In short, what is the timescale for delivery, and how do we balance the competing interests that we have discussed?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I am sure that you have, minister. I understand that the stage 1 debate on the bill will be on 17 March 2023, so we will be keen to see what progress you have made before then.