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 934 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Virtual Trials and Charges for Court Transcripts (Correspondence)
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Katy Clark
On transcripts, I suspect that one of the issues is cost, but we really should be provided with that information. The committee is spending a huge amount of its time talking and asking about the issue, and there does not seem to be a willingness to share information.
As, I think, we will all remember, we discussed virtual trials at length during the bill process. We asked repeatedly for the kind of information that Rona Mackay is talking about, but it was not forthcoming. It took us an awful lot of time to get any information. I think that we concluded that far less was happening than was being presented, and I suspect that that is still the case.
As a committee, we should be concerned about being bounced into making permanent decisions when the evidence base is not there, so we should be robust in our correspondence with the cabinet secretary. We should outline the history and say that it is not that we would object to the proposed change in principle, but that it needs to be evidenced and subject to democratic scrutiny, given the serious and considerable implications for the justice system.
Whether we do that now or at a later stage, I think that we would want to put that in writing and go back to the point about why we are asking for that information.
Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Katy Clark
Emma, have you had the opportunity to consider the concept of public safety? Do you have thoughts on how it might be better defined? Are you concerned that bringing in a new concept, with a lack of certainty about what the law is, might make things more difficult for victims?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
Good morning, minister.
The Feeley review focused on adult social care. Where did the idea come from of bringing wider social work functions into the national care service?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
I appreciate that the Government consultation mentioned that; however, it is quite clear from speaking to social workers and others who are involved in the sector that they feel that there has not been a full and proper consultation. Why was a full consultation not carried out with social workers, people who have lived experience and others before the bill was brought before the Parliament? Do you not think that there is a need for a full consultation to be carried out before the Parliament considers the issue?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
Given that the Government has a parliamentary majority in the Parliament, will the bill be passed, if the Government parties vote it through, before decisions have been made about whether the national care service will include social work?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
So there would not be scrutiny of that decision by the Parliament.
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
Do you accept that, if it were decided to bring social work into the national care service, that would lead to a significant increase in tendering? That seems to be what you are saying.
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
That is slightly different from delegated legislation coming to the Parliament—whether to this committee or another—so that there is an opportunity to scrutinise and vote on that delegated legislation. Will you give an undertaking that you will bring delegated legislation?
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
I had not planned to ask about this. I am pursuing the point because of what the minister said. It might be something that we can pursue at a later date.
Criminal Justice Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Katy Clark
I understood that that is what the minister said—he said that delegated legislation would come to the Parliament. I presume that that means that it would come to this committee. Regardless of whether it is this committee or another committee that considers it, there will be delegated legislation.
