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 674 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
Do the witnesses agree with Baroness Cumberlege’s view that giving a patient safety commissioner responsibility for handling individual cases would make the commissioner less effective in addressing wider systemic issues of patient safety? If not, why not?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
That is really useful; thank you.
Because of the groups that you are associated with, you have all had similar but varied experiences. Some common themes are coming out. I hope that we have enough time for this question, convener, because I would like to hear each person’s views. If the patient safety commissioner does not take on individual cases and complaints, how could they effectively listen to and promote the voices of patients, or of wider campaigns such as yours?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
We discussed the duplication of effort across the UK with the Patient Safety Commissioner for England. What working arrangements will need to be put in place to ensure that there is no such duplication and that individual issues in different jurisdictions can be tackled, while enabling information to be shared where there might be a UK-wide issue?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
Do the witnesses agree with Baroness Cumberlege’s view that giving a patient safety commissioner responsibility for handling individual cases would make the commissioner less effective in addressing wider systemic issues of patient safety? If not, why not?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
These have obviously been traumatic experiences for you all. What support would you like to see sit alongside a patient safety commissioner to support groups or individuals who raise such cases? As you said, sometimes not hearing back or not getting a resolution to a case can further compound the trauma resulting from a mistake or whatever else has happened that has got that person to the patient safety commissioner. Do any of you have any reflections from your experiences or the campaigns that you are part of?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Mackay
I think that my questions will probably mostly be to Alison Cave. How can the new patient safety commissioner add value to the existing monitoring systems around medicines and medical devices?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
Baroness Cumberlege, how would you respond to those who argue that a patient safety commissioner should have a role in dealing with individual cases and complaints?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
How can public expectations of the patient safety commissioner’s role in promoting the voice of patients be suitably managed without their taking on those individual cases and complaints?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
Do I have time for one more question, convener?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 31 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
Thanks.
You mentioned communication in relation to the patient safety commissioner. What is the most effective way of communicating changes that are made as a result of issues where there are trends and things need to be changed either in individual health boards or in the system as a whole? That communication might provide redress and some comfort to some of those who have raised concerns. How can it most effectively be done?
