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
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
I have one more brief question. What is being done, or what needs to be done, to support young players so that they are able to raise issues when they see them? I have no doubt that the complaints that we have heard about are the tip of the iceberg and that there are probably young players who have heard things but not raised them because of various factors. What is being done to ensure that young players’ voices are heard and that they are able make complaints, which might often be against adults, when they hear things that are inappropriate?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
I have a follow-up question to David Torrance’s last question. Does that in essence mean that there is no way in which to enforce divergence for the different nations of the United Kingdom if goods that have been made in another country can be sold in, for example, Scotland against decisions that have been made here for public health reasons?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
Does Anjan have any reflections on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
Is there a danger that the system is more complicated now, with the 2020 act, the common frameworks and other pieces of legislation, than it was when we were in the EU and under other frameworks?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Food Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
As a millennial, I think that we may be in danger of oversimplification in this line of questioning—if you teach everyone how to cook pasta, it will all be fine. Multiple factors are involved. We have already covered some of them, such as income, background, disability, health condition and all sorts of other things. As someone who has polycystic ovary syndrome, I have an insulin resistance and therefore need to look at an entirely different diet from that of someone else of my age and socioeconomic background. In your work, how do we address those multiple factors to make sure that everybody has the information that is relevant to them? Obviously, there is a vast array of advice and information on social media and so on, some of which is not particularly useful for an awful lot of people. How do we make sure that that information comes from reputable sources that are backed up by science and experts?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
How are you ensuring that any learning from the complaints is influencing the changes that are made and that those changes are effectively communicated to those who have made complaints so that they can see that there is some resolution and impact beyond just the resolution of their complaint?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket
Meeting date: 24 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
How far has Cricket Scotland progressed in establishing a longer-term complaints-handling process? To what extent can we be confident that the process fully addresses the issues that have been identified by the Plan4Sport review, including the lack of confidentiality and clarity in the reporting process and the lack of a complaints process for members of the wider cricketing community? I am also interested in what mental health and wellbeing support has been put in place for those who come forward with a complaint.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
I think that the cabinet secretary shares my view that we should be trying to deliver services as locally as possible. He mentioned the Lawson memorial hospital in Golspie. I have family members who have had stints in that hospital. It is a brilliant facility, but the building is not the newest building in the world. How can we ensure that such buildings can keep up with the pace of the technology that is being delivered in some of our bigger hospitals in the central belt, where appropriate, and how can we make sure that they continue to be fit for service?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
We have an ageing population. We heard during our national care service visit to Dumfries and Galloway that a higher number of people are retiring there, which increases pressures on certain areas of services. What work is under way to ensure that, with regard to the workforce, we take account of that potential change of demographic, and particularly the potential skewing due to people retiring to certain remote and rural locations?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Gillian Mackay
I had the absolute privilege of visiting some school nurses in Falkirk a few weeks ago, and it was incredible to see the amount of preventative work that they do. They are hugely passionate and innovative in what they do. In rural and remote areas, their preventative work on health could be extremely important. Given the potential impacts of certain practitioners on keeping people well—resulting in fewer attendances at acute settings, which is important—and given some of the distances involved in remote and rural areas, what planning is under way to ensure that we have a diverse mix of recruitment and that we do not lose sight of really important healthcare professionals, such as school nurses?
