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 1673 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Russell Findlay
That point was made during the evidence session, but it was not addressed in the letter from the Government, so it needs to be clarified. Whether Gill Imery would accept is another matter.
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I found it. Just to give the context, page 13 includes the phrase
“insight gathering which could inform a future approach to communications.”
If they do not have any plans, just say so.
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Russell Findlay
There was another point that I forgot to mention about the cabinet secretary’s letter in response to our questions about an awareness campaign. When the act first came into force, there was a publicity campaign to let people know what it did, which was apparently quite helpful. We asked whether there were plans to do something else. In response, the cabinet secretary said:
“We are currently undertaking insight gathering”.
There is further documentation from Scottish Government, on page 13 of paper 2, that also uses the term “insight gathering”. I wonder whether it is worth trying to establish whether there are any concrete plans, because I do not quite know what that means. It either seeks to do something or it does not. It is a small point.
10:30Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
In its written evidence to the committee, NHS Education for Scotland says that the bill’s definition of trauma-informed practice should align with its five-point definition, which was published this year. However, the bill does not include two of those five points. NHS Education for Scotland says that it is “essential” that they be included and that leaving them out
“may also hinder the effective implementation of other elements of the Bill.”
It wants the Scottish Government to reconsider the issue. Will you?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
Does it not cause you some concern that a senior Police Scotland officer has told the committee that the problems will not be fixed by the bill?
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I was talking about Mr Frew’s comments.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
As a member of the Parliament, I am trying to understand the process, because you might lodge an amendment with good intent but, if the necessary work has not been done to assess the costs, it can potentially create more problems.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
I do not doubt it. Thank you.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
My question is specifically on the fact that the bill says that, once it is enacted, the judiciary will decide what trauma informed looks like. Should the bill not state what that looks like up front?
Criminal Justice Committee
Policing and Mental Health
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Russell Findlay
You make 14 recommendations in the report. I do not know whether I understood your opening statement correctly, but I think that you said that the first recommendation might go slightly beyond your remit. Indeed, that recommendation calls for
“a strategic review of the whole system”
from start to finish. The question is whether the Scottish Government has welcomed that suggestion—whether such a review looks likely—and whether the other 13 recommendations are, temporarily at least, redundant until recommendation 1 is either accepted or rejected.
