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 1960 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
I find that really useful. The trends that you are laying out for the sector may have emerged due to the rapid rebounding of the economy, which I think has taken most people by surprise, globally. The scale of the Government investment to try and ensure that that has happened has been welcome, although there are skills shortages, as you have illustrated, in many countries around the world. That is fairly common, although I do not doubt that some of that has been exacerbated by the shape of our labour market with regard to immigration.
Do you believe that, as a result of that, and given the longer-term changes in people’s behaviour, both in their working patterns and as consumers, we need to have a more profound reset in how we address these issues? You have spoken about the positive atmosphere in working with agencies, and that is great. Do we need to examine some of the issues in a more concerted way and to think about what is emerging as a new normal?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
My final question relates to your own institution. I recall speaking to a lecturer who expressed frustration that the lack of young people taking higher computing had meant that, in some of your core courses, it could no longer be used as a compulsory subject. Consequently, a lot of teaching in first year was in areas that could perhaps have enthused people in the way you spoke about. Do you see other institutions having that problem in common with you?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
That is a very useful comment about the broader practical issues. We have focused on a very useful conversation about the 23 per cent decline in the number of computing teachers and we recognise that something has to be done in that area. Your comments on the broader infrastructure, including the human infrastructure of support staff, are particularly useful.
I am conscious of the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s role in the area. There is a lot of characterisation of computing as a boring subject. One headteacher said to me recently that higher computing had been positioned as being quite a technical, boring, inaccessible subject, rather than having been given a sense of inspiration and possibility. Would you recognise and agree with that characterisation?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
That is helpful. Thanks, convener.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
I am not sure that that was an answer to my question. I asked about the impact on the most deprived children in the most deprived communities in Scotland, which are set to have their budgets significantly cut as a result of the new agreed formula. Will that improve outcomes or will it just make it more challenging for those nine authorities to cope?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
The Scottish Government’s commitment was that monitors would be in 100 per cent of classrooms. Has that happened?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
The particular circumstances in the nine local authorities that have had massive cuts to their budgets in the past week really need to be addressed in any report, too.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
I thank everyone for their evidence so far. The panel will be pleased to learn that their evidence chimes with the evidence that we have received in recent weeks about the lack of an overall analysis of need in Scotland. We have heard about that loud and clear, not just in your answers to colleagues’ questions today but also in your written evidence. In that context, I want to ask you about changes to the Scottish attainment challenge, which is, as has been mentioned, one of the key sources of resource that councils have been drawing on for provision.
You will be aware that the challenge was reformed last week. The announcement detailed £35.5 million of year-on-year cuts to the funding, including £17 million from PEF, and it set out the reallocation of £43 million from the nine most deprived authorities to be spread across the 32 local authorities. It means savage, eye-watering cuts for the nine original Scottish attainment challenge authorities. Will the reforms be beneficial or damaging to the recovery of education for the most deprived pupils in the most deprived communities in Scotland? I ask our colleague from COSLA to answer that first.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
I welcome the agreement between you, convener, and Mr Doris that a report should be forthcoming and that we get some information from COSLA. However, I must point out—and I should declare an interest here as a councillor with Dundee City Council—that the cabinet secretary has just cut over £4 million of the council’s education budget. As a result, coming back to your question to Jennifer King on whether people are moving to permanent contracts, I have to say that that would be particularly challenging in Dundee, given the size of the direct cut that has been made. It is key that we reflect some of that in this context—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children and Young People (Impact of Covid)
Meeting date: 1 December 2021
Michael Marra
As a native Dundonian, you will appreciate my concern about the situation that you describe, with the good work that has happened in recent years being under threat, and its having to be re-evaluated with regard to whether we can afford it, at a time when need is increasing.
What do the other two panellists think about the revision in the areas of highest deprivation? Can we meet the need if we are cutting resource in that way?
11:30