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 1574 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
Bob Doris has covered part of my question. Following on from that, however, I wish to ask Simon Cameron of COSLA whether any discussions have begun with the Scottish Government or with local authorities to ensure that we do not have a third year of this situation. We have gone through two years, and we have heard some anecdotal evidence that things have perhaps got a little bit better in different places, and the response has evolved in some instances, but what can we do over the next year? Will the work continue, or are we looking at another set of panic measures next winter?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
That is great. I am sure that the committee would appreciate hearing about some of that work in writing in the coming months, as it develops, perhaps along with the programme of discussions that you might be having on that with the Scottish Government and colleagues. It would be good for the committee to receive that.
Given the time, I will now move on to my substantive line of questioning. The committee has repeatedly heard about a lack of overall analysis of the impact of the pandemic, particularly the differential impact—an analysis of who has suffered the most and who requires the most intervention. Following the return to school in the current period, do the witnesses have any reflections on that differential impact—on who has suffered the most?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
I ask Margaret Wilson to comment about representations that she might have been having about different groups who have been affected disproportionately.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
Thank you, Margaret.
Greg Dempster and Margaret Wilson have both mentioned issues of deprivation. Is that experience shared by you and your members, Douglas Hutchison, and have any other groups been disproportionately impacted?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
I do not feel that we are getting anywhere with that issue, but I am sure that we will come back to it on another occasion.
I want to ask about another issue, which relates reasonably closely to my previous questions. On 17 November, I raised the issue of missing pupils or learners. Our first analysis of the figures showed that about one in 100 young people—about 6,900 kids across Scotland—are not attending school any more. Yesterday, I heard that the Children’s Commissioner for England is launching an inquiry into children who are not attending school post-pandemic. What are the witnesses’ experiences of that issue? How closely are you looking at it? Do you have any evidence on it? Should we be concerned about it, as I am?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
Thank you, convener. I appreciate that. I just want to give Margaret Wilson the chance to comment on that. Douglas Hutchison was talking about what I hope is a fairly comprehensive approach to making sure that young people can return. Has the issue of anxiety among young people and what we can do to address that been feeding through your networks?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
I think that we would take that on board, Greg. Margaret, can I come to you now?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
Simon, do you believe that there has been a larger impact in the most deprived communities—in those areas where there is concentrated, multiple deprivation?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
That is really useful, Simon. A lot of those interventions and the work with outside agencies have been funded in different places through the Scottish attainment challenge. I have a couple of questions about the reforms that have been undertaken. Many of the local authorities with the highest levels of multiple deprivation are losing up to 60 per cent of their Scottish attainment challenge funding. Dundee is losing 80 per cent of its Scottish attainment challenge funding. What do you believe the rationale to be behind that policy change?
11:00Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
I will push you a little on that. There has been a headline change to how the policy is delivered across Scotland. In Dundee, money from the Scottish attainment challenge currently supports 120 staff, and I believe that 25 of those staff are to be cut this year as a result of the cut. Over this parliamentary session, 80 per cent of the funding will be lost, which will affect about 100 members of staff who are working directly with the most deprived members of our community. Areas such as speech and language therapy, which we heard about earlier, are suffering immediate cuts. Did the Scottish Government suggest that approach to COSLA and did COSLA then agree to it on that basis? I do not understand the rationale for the shift. What is COSLA’s perspective?
