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 5714 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is a very good suggestion. Lou Evans wants to come in at this point.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
I will bring in Paul McLennan on the theme of community organisations, volunteering and planning. The time is 11:33, so we will probably go on for another 10 or 15 minutes before concluding.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Richard Crawford is keen to come in. It is hard for witnesses in the virtual space to come in, so I will let him get his wedge in. Come on in, Richard.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Good morning and welcome to the 17th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.
The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Let us move on, because we have quite a lot to get through. I am sure that we will be asking a question where you can bring in all those bits and pieces. I want to get to what we are here to talk about today, which is part 9 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. A key aim of part 9 is to help address the demand for allotments, which Richard Crawford touched on. I am interested to hear whether you think that that legislation has made a difference in addressing the demand. That is for whoever wants to pick it up.
10:15Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Of course, sitting and listening to the birds has value in the benefits that it brings to mental health and wellbeing .
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
At this point, I am going to set out what we will do for the next half an hour or so. We have about seven or eight questions left, and we will try to cover three themes. You may have already covered some of them, because you are doing such brilliant work here. What you are sharing with us is great.
The next theme is the implementation of the 2015 act and the assumptions about the size of allotments. Then we will bring in a bit more of the local food strategies, which Lou Evans started to touch on. We then want to talk about, and get a greater understanding from you about, volunteering and planning, which we have also touched on.
We still have quite a lot to cover, but we have touched on a lot of those things already. I will bring in Marie McNair with a couple of questions about the size of the plots.
11:00Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is very true. This has been a rich conversation. Paul McLennan and the rest of us have gained a lot from it.
Lou Evans referred to “our sector”. I think that you said what that is, but I would love it if you could encapsulate what you are imagining when you say “our sector”.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
The next item is to take evidence on the impact of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 on allotments and community food growing. This is the first of three evidence sessions that the committee is holding as part of its inquiry. We will be discussing the topic today with a panel of witnesses representing allotment and food growing organisations.
I welcome Lou Evans from the Community Growing Forum Scotland; Jenny Reeves, who is the chair of the Glasgow Allotments Forum; Stuart McKenzie, who is the president of the Federation of Edinburgh and District Allotments and Gardens Associations; and Richard Crawford, who is the vice-president of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society, who is joining us online.
It would be helpful if members could direct their questions to a specific witness where possible, although I will be happy to bring in others who wish to contribute. If other witnesses wish to comment, please indicate your desire to do so to me or to the clerk and I will bring you in at an appropriate point. Richard, I would be grateful if you could indicate when you wish to come in by typing R in the chat function in BlueJeans. I will begin by asking a few questions and then open up the session to questions from other members.
This is about the big picture of allotments. I am keen to hear your views on the broader, positive impacts of allotments, particularly the social, environmental and food security benefits that allotments bring. Do you have any sense of how those benefits are being measured. Do you think that allotments have an impact in other areas of public policy in Scotland? There is quite a bit there. I will start with Stuart McKenzie and then go to everybody else.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Allotments
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Indeed. Thank you very much for your response to that. Yesterday, we visited Stuart McKenzie’s allotment and I told him that I came across that allotment site in Inverleith park when I was a child, and I remember it being a magical discovery experience. You are right that allotments are tucked away. We visited others yesterday as well. Inverleith allotments seem to be more visible now and there are 180 people growing food there. We visited others that are visible and we saw a community plot that involves new Scots, which you spoke of. It was incredible to see that coming to life.
I will bring in Richard Crawford to answer the same question. In general, what are the social, environmental and food security benefits of allotments and community growing and do you have a sense, from the work that you have been doing, of whether the benefits are being measured or assessed in any way?
