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 2412 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
Jude makes an interesting point. I was struck by what Martin Crewe said about the four issues that he highlighted. Does anything in the bill do anything for the issues that you highlight?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
I have probably taken enough time, so I will stick with Vicky Irons for my last question.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
You talk about resources. Resources, particularly money and time, are finite. Jude Currie, given the challenges that were outlined so eloquently by Martin Crewe, is it wise that we take up time and money to do something that is basically structural, that will be process heavy and that will create new and challenging interfaces, particularly in relation to children’s services, which will be a small part of an overall service?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
That is not what the Northern Alliance said. In its evidence, it stated:
“The main risk of locating children’s social work and social care in the National Care Service is that they will become a very small component of a large complex organisation which has a predominantly adult focus.”
That is diametrically the opposite of what you have just said.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
Is that an argument for including children’s services in the NCS or is it an argument for the status quo?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
Is it sensible to do it that way round? Is it sensible to do it in the way that ministers are doing it, rather than our understanding the implications of a national care service during the passage of the bill?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
It is. It is kind of the opposite of what we heard from Dundee.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
It is not dependent on structural change, is it? The way that you described it earlier is that it is about people and leadership—people taking the initiative to bring other people together to work on improving the delivery of a service.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
There is no denying that things can be improved; you are making that clear. However, you have also raised the spectre of the way that the public sector, in particular, often struggles with change and the delivery of change—it is a red flag, actually. Will you comment on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Stephen Kerr
What I think I am hearing—if my interpretation and comprehension skills are what they should be—is that change is quite difficult to manage in your organisations, in terms of integration and working together. I am referring to the evidence that you have submitted in writing. For example, in its submission, North Lanarkshire IJB mentioned concern about the impact that the bill would have in that
“a significant change programme”
could
“cause ... partner bodies to look inwards for a period to address organisational concerns”.
Similarly, Dundee City Council mentioned that the proposed changes would “create greater complexity”, which would cause disruption in established working relationships. Am I interpreting that correctly? Can you help me?
