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 862 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 report: “Early Learning and Childcare: Progress on delivery of the 1,140 hours expansion”
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Scottish Borders Council funded a childminding link worker. The childminding sector told me that that was vital to its operation. That funding has been withdrawn because of the pressures that local authorities face. To what extent does the wider financial environment in councils put at risk, for example, link or outreach workers who operate between councils and the independent, voluntary and third sectors? Could that also mean that greater pressures will wash back up on councils?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 report: “Early Learning and Childcare: Progress on delivery of the 1,140 hours expansion”
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Craig Hoy
I wonder whether councils are basically providing what they can provide under the financial constraints, instead of looking at what parents actually need.
Given that councils, which are both providers and rule setters, determine the rates for the private, voluntary and independent—or PVI—sector, is there perhaps a contradiction or a conflict of interest in the whole system that the Scottish Government has overlooked?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
If, for any reason, the three-year plan did not come out during the summer, what risks do you think that that would pose for the transformation agenda in the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
What, if any, assessment has been made of the extent to which the high and growing number of people being held on remand has an impact on those individuals? For example, how does that affect their mental health, earnings, employment or future housing arrangements?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
If my memory serves me correctly, you said that the backlog for less serious cases should be cleared by spring of next year but is likely to continue until 2026 for more serious cases. Does that point to an imbalance of provision between the High Court and lesser courts?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Paragraph 91 of the report states that advisory group arrangements for the transformational projects that support the vision for justice in Scotland “are still being discussed”. It goes on to emphasise the importance of ensuring that
“the views of a wider group of stakeholders continue to inform decision-making and ensure that equalities issues are fully considered.”
Can you provide an update on what stage those discussions are presently at?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Boyle. Obviously, prison overcrowding is nothing new. You have previously reported that the prisoner population in Scotland exceeds the capacity of the Scottish prison estate. To what extent are the backlog and, particularly, the number of prisoners being held on remand—sometimes for extended periods—impacting on the existing and long-standing pressures in the Scottish Prison Service?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Paragraph 29 on page 17 of the report states that, through the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No 2) Act 2020, the Scottish Government extended the maximum time for which an accused person can be held on remand prior to trial without the court granting an extension. Can you tell the committee a bit more about the time limit extensions that the Scottish Government introduced? How are they different to the limits prior to Covid, particularly for those being held on remand?
Public Audit Committee
“Criminal courts backlog”
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Craig Hoy
I am going to use very much layman’s terms, and I am sure that procurators fiscal will be aghast at this. Is there any sense that procurators fiscal are going soft on less serious crimes, and those are simply not going to court? Is there a bit of jiggery-pokery and deal making to bring down the numbers in a quicker fashion than might otherwise have been the case before Covid?
