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 2032 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
I will direct my opening question to Chris Brodie. I was heartened to read the submission from Skills Development Scotland, because it makes clear the differences between skills gaps, skills shortages and labour shortages. In my opinion, such distinctions are vital if we are to understand the people element of supply chains.
We have already started to explore skills gaps and shortages, and other members might want to ask about those issues. I want to talk about labour shortages. In your submission, you note that labour shortages occur due to there being too few bodies, which could be down to issues of demographics, economic inactivity or reduced inward migration.
I want to understand, on an evidential basis, the specific impact that demographics and a lack of inward migration are having, and which issues that can be perceived as structural we need to address. I would like to know where we are right now, and I have another question about where we will be in the future. What is your opinion on where we are now, and on why we are there?
Lastly, I am sure that the B word—Brexit—might come into it, but I want to understand whether, without inward migration, we can have enough bodies in Scotland.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
In that case, I will move on to my other area of questioning. I have read the excellent report that Paul Little produced with Audrey Cumberford, and I have a couple of questions about it.
You make a very clear case for focusing on excellence rather than competence and, with regard to WorldSkills, I understand that, as well as being a competition, it develops international standards and therefore enables international benchmarking and increases the competitiveness of the contributing countries. Is that correct? Can you tell us more about the thinking behind the move from competence to excellence that you outline in your report with Audrey Cumberford?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
Yes. I want us to be very specific about the difference between skills gaps, skills shortages and labour shortages, and to understand where we are now with structural issues as far as labour shortages are concerned. As a result, it would be helpful to get on the record and in evidence what you are actually seeing in your area.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
Thank you for that comprehensive answer. Perhaps Richard McClelland can add to what Chris Brodie has said by giving us an industry perspective, particularly with regard to demographics and labour shortages.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
My question follows on from the theme of the role of women and was triggered by Chris Brodie talking about economically inactive workers in his opening remarks. Here is another question about numbers: what percentage of the economically inactive population is made up of women? To what extent do all panel members routinely disaggregate the data that they collect so that they understand the particular impacts on women in the labour market?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
That is a very good point.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
I do not disagree with what you say. The point that I was trying to make is that there is nothing preventing somebody who has done a music degree—often, they will be producing their own music—from switching tack and doing something different. I know that, because I did it. That was 30 years ago, when it was arguably even less common than it is now.
I see that Mark Logan wants to pop back in before I go on to my final question. Mark, do you want to pick up on this thread?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. Needless to say, I strongly agree with you. I see that Paul Hunter wants to come in.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
Thank you.
As a final word, do you have anything to add to that, Paul?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, everybody. It is nice to join you, albeit remotely. I have a couple of short questions.
The first is for Mark Logan. I am interested in your comments about the pace of change, creativity, entrepreneurs and so on. What can be done to utilise the creatives? I say that as someone who initially did a music degree and who quickly came to understand it, and describe it, as precision engineering, due to the accuracy required to produce certain types of music.
Subsequently, I did a postgraduate qualification in IT. I was told at the time, and then at the company for which I eventually went to work, that I had been recruited because of evidence of creativity. The company wanted that creativity in its IT department. Therefore, it seems to me that, in business and in the Government, at whatever level, there is not necessarily the understanding of how creative the creatives are, and how useful they can be in IT.
