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 1329 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 21 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
There is an issue that I am keen to hear about. If you do not know where you stand with regard to the number of people from different ethnicities, it is very difficult to make improvements. My first question, therefore, is a very simple one. Patrick, do you have a breakdown with regard to people from different ethnicities?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 21 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Fair enough. I am particularly keen to hear about swimming, because I think that there is a bit of a problem with regard to ethnicity and people wanting to take up the sport. I do not know exactly why that is, but do you have an ethnicity breakdown for memberships? What policies are you putting in place to increase the number of people from ethnic backgrounds going into swimming?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have a very quick final question about the extra cost. What would you say to those people who are very concerned about the cost—full stop—given that there are lots of patient safety commissioners?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
That is fantastic.
You said that you want the patient voice to be heard. I am fully aware that it is not intended that the patient safety commissioner will take up individual cases, and you made it clear that the commissioner will not be doing investigative work.
However, to pick up on Emma Harper’s questions, should the patient safety commissioner and their team listen to individual patients when they have a story to tell or something to talk about, in order to collate and catalogue each case and look for the golden thread?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My question is focused on the methodology. I am in no way trying to attack you; I am trying to ascertain how you got to where you got to. What was the ethnic minority and religious mix in your advisory group?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I want to pick up on something that the convener asked you, which was about evaluation. How will you evaluate whether, in year 1, 2 or 3, the patient safety commissioner is doing what we would expect them to be doing?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have two brief questions. The first is about periods. Beth England, a footballer in England, has talked about how periods affect her and how, when it came to training, she felt washed out. Obviously, girls and young people have not grown into their bodies and do not really know about those issues. What does your report say about how periods affect girls and their participation in sport, and about what we can do to help?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Absolutely—please send information on the minority ethnic and religious mix, if appropriate.
Jenni, you have spoken about the small number of responses from people from an ethnic minority background. The sample rate was too small to address religion and belief. You reached out to the girl guides, but they are not particularly ethnically diverse. You have reached out to a group such as the girl guides but you do not have ethnicity data; I do not fully understand why you did not reach out to another group.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
That is absolutely true, but how will you evaluate that? The question was about evaluation. We understand the concept and the people who have spoken, but how will we evaluate whether the PSC is doing what they are supposed to be doing?
