Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
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.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
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.
Search by MSP
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.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
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.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
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:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
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.
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Displaying 1515 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, minister. I am happy to see that progress is being made. One of the good aspects of Covid is that it has accelerated something that was intended to happen anyway.
I have a general question. How confident are you that the organisational capacity and capability from an information technology perspective is in place, with particular reference to safety and security? You may have already tested that. We are talking about extremely important documents that go back a long way, and hacking is a concern for any organisation.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chains
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Yes. You have accurately depicted the wider environment in regard to rules—you mentioned the WTO and so on—but I am asking about the general concept of mandation to effect change in the market, including with regard to the net zero aspect.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I will press you on this issue a little. We know that loss of control over situations will be regarded by many as further abuse. Although I fully accept what you are saying from the point of view of Government, ethics—to go back to that term—would require equal consideration of both sides.
I would also make the point that, in a circumstance such as that, the evidence tells us that there can often be a loss of cognitive capacity because emotion is running high. There is also a risk to the Scottish Government that, in taking the initial evidence where that might be the case, without necessarily saying, “You do realise that we could make a police report,” the chance of a successful or consequentialist ethical outcome could be diminished.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
And their expertise, as well, of course. Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Within the process and the culture that we have talked about, what specific consideration have you given to the complexity of having special advisers as civil servants? It is a slightly special challenge, because special advisers come in through a political route and then become civil servants. Obviously, civil servants have different obligations. It seems to me that that is worthy of additional consideration and reflection. What have you done in that respect?
11:15Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
Okay—this is my last question. Again, it is a wee technical thing. Within the process, how much active consideration have you given to managing the weighting of evidence?
We know that contemporaneous, third-party evidence carries much more weight than evidence that is brought out at a later period, but it is quite a complex and technical area in terms of risk. Have you given that active consideration? It is quite complex, and it does skew results.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
To go back to the issue of culture, culture is the hardest thing to change in any organisation. It is well understood in a programme management context that the process normally takes years and involves values-based frameworks, staff training and all the rest of it. The issue has been well covered, but I have not yet heard you reflect on the issue of changing culture in a hierarchical organisation, where there are particular considerations in relation to the balance of power.
I realise that that is a slightly technical question, but I would like to hear your reflections on culture change in a situation in which there is a strict hierarchy, as exists in the civil service.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I suppose that my issue is about agency for victims, to be specific.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I fully understand the position that you are giving from a Government point of view, but, personally, I think that it would be beneficial to sit down and look at it from the exact opposite point of view, as well.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Michelle Thomson
I have four questions, all on slightly different areas, and I will add an extra one, because I want to go back to a point that John Mason made about making a police report.
I realise that the nature of the issue depends on the circumstances, but where it concerns sexual impropriety or worse, I am very clear that people make a complaint because they want to be heard, and not because they necessarily will take the steps that will result in the matter ending up in court. What active consideration have you given to the possibility that the Government’s approach could have a cooling effect on complainants, which is completely the opposite of the intention?
