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 1469 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
Our next item is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take item 4 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
Good morning and a very warm welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2022 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee. We have received apologies from Maurice Golden and also from Sarah Boyack, for whom Claire Baker MSP is here as substitute. Ms Baker will have to leave to attend to other parliamentary duties during the course of the meeting, but she hopes to be able to return later.
I ask Ms Baker to declare any relevant interests.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
I have a supplementary question about the impact of the announcement on the youth music initiative. It exposed the precarious contract position for a lot of people who work in the sector. It is disappointing that the youth music initiative was conflated with core education funding and curriculum activity, which had not been under consideration.
My question is for Mr Booth and Councillor Heddle. Have you reflected on the impact that that had? Is local government in a position to offer sustainability, rather than project-based and short-term contracts, to people working in that area?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
As there are no further questions, I thank you all for attending and for your helpful written submissions to the committee. We will now have a brief suspension for a changeover of witnesses.
09:54 Meeting suspended.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
I will ask a final supplementary question. Many third sector and voluntary organisations that we have taken evidence from were really thankful for the support that was given through Covid, which helped most of them to keep afloat, but they also expressed to us how dynamic the funding landscape became at that time. Instead of those organisations feeling as though they had to jump through hoops and get through lots of red tape to get to a pocket of money, the funders looked on them as trusted partners and said, “We know what you do, so here’s the money. Go and do it during this really difficult time.” A lot of organisations said that not having to make so much effort to get money was such a relief. It is certainly a significant worry for organisations that they have now to continue making that effort. I recognise that it is public money that has to be accounted for, and that outcomes have to be achieved, but organisations feel that the red-tape barriers have gone back up.
One specific thing that was mentioned by more than one organisation was that it was felt that having been fiscally prudent and building up reserves became, all of a sudden, a barrier to accessing emergency funding. Organisations felt a little hard done by because there was no guidance from the Scottish Government about what levels of reserves they were expected to have. I do not know whether that is something that you or the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator could influence. There were inconsistencies in respect of the challenges that organisations faced, and they would want us to raise that with you.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
Cabinet secretary, Ms Baker has been at another committee. I am minded to allow her to ask some questions, but we do not want you to repeat previous answers. If necessary, you can direct Ms Baker to the Official Report.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Clare Adamson
I thank the cabinet secretary and Ms Baird for their attendance. I ask people to clear the room quickly, as we have another agenda item to deal with and are now very pressed for time.
I close the public part of the meeting.
11:13 Meeting continued in private until 11:17.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Clare Adamson
That concludes questions from the committee. I will be very cheeky by saying that I hope to see you all again next year for Eurovision in Glasgow, which I know is one of your areas of interest. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. I will suspend the meeting briefly.
10:01 Meeting suspended.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Clare Adamson
That concludes questions. I thank our witnesses for their attendance. We have a final evidence session on the budget next week, followed by a session with the cabinet secretary on the evidence that we have taken.
Meeting closed at 11:25.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Clare Adamson
Thank you. We will move to questions from the committee.