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 1225 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
On your third sector, I heard of the great work that Penumbra has been doing in the Western Isles. What additional support do you give Penumbra to do the great work that it is already doing?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Absolutely. I highlight something that you said earlier: that the culture is different. You highlighted Ukrainian women and Muslim women, but we are also talking about different types of Muslim women. All the different ethnic groups are different, and the data that you collect will help you.
There are two big things about which I would like to ask. First, how do we encourage more ethnic minority women into just doing some sport, whether that be the gym or participation? Secondly, how do we get those women to be elite? Lynne, because your organisation has the data, I ask you to comment first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
You therefore feel that you are £500,000 short of where you should be.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Can I just pause you there? My question was about the phrase “when necessary”, which you used in response to Tess White. Can you give me some specific examples of when this is necessary?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I assume, Robert Nesbitt, that you do not have that data.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have some general questions based on my experience as a doctor working in University hospital Ayr, which covers a rural community, in part, along with an urban community. I know that your populations are very different, in that they are all rural. I remember that, whenever I was asked to see a patient who I was told was a farmer, I would drop everything, because farmers do not come to hospital unless something catastrophic has happened. For example, one person amputated their finger while lambing and only came to see me a couple of weeks later.
Bearing that in mind, and how people in rural committees—especially farmers—tend to be, what different approaches do you need to take to look after the mental health of your community compared with how the majority of the population in urban areas are treated?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Carol Mochan asked about GPs accessing information. I often do not know what surgery a patient who is in front of me has had and patients often do not know the details of the surgery that they have had. You can send me all the information you want to send about what women who have mesh might experience, but, if I do not know that a person has had mesh implanted, how can I put two and two together?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
You are, of course, correct, but when we are thinking about a reimbursement scheme and talking about pathways for women who have suffered and are struggling, everything goes hand in hand. I was under the impression that the Government was looking at what to do with women who are struggling, who are in pain and who were unable to get the help that they required during the passage of the bill. That is why my question was framed in that manner.
My final question is also on the referral pathway. Is it possible for a GP to directly refer into that pathway?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We heard from a number of people that general practitioners are making direct referrals and that the pathway is a secondary care referral pathway. If the people who are coming to the committee are not being absolutely explicit, how can we expect other people to know what the pathway is and the way to follow it?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
As a practising GP, I can say that access to records is shocking. It is not good enough to say that you are going to create a new system and that GPs might be able to access that, because I already log into three different systems and it takes forever to search for things. How will the new system that you are creating be linked to the records that already exist for GPs?
