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 1201 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
I have one follow-up question. I have listened to what you have said, which has been helpful for our scrutiny of the bill. Do we need the legislation that would establish a national care service to do this stuff, or could or should we be doing it now?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
I have a question about the social work adviser and the social work agency. I know that the issue has been touched on and that we have had submissions about it but, for the record, will you tell us how you think that should play out? What advice would you give us about scrutinising such an idea?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
That was a helpful addition to your submission. Does Rob Gowans want to come in?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
That is helpful. You said that the role of the agency can develop as it is discussed.
Fiona Collie, do you want to come in?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
We have heard from them. It is helpful to hear your response, as well as to hear about support for the agency as it develops.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
Good morning. I am interested in the topics of the national social work agency and the national chief social work adviser. Our job is to scrutinise the legislation as it comes through. I recognise the position that you are taking, but it would be useful for us to understand how you would feel about having a chief social work adviser and how that position would link to the roles of local authorities.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
That was helpful. Thank you very much.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
Not every organisation has taken a position on this, but I am interested to know whether anyone has a view that they would like to put on the record about the national social work adviser and the national social work agency. Do you believe that they are necessary, and would that provision be of benefit? Adam, you look as if you are going to say something.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
Public Health Scotland recently revealed that levels of delayed discharge from hospitals reached a record high in August, which is one of our warmest months. The Royal College of Physicians has said that that should be a cause for huge alarm. Does the cabinet secretary think that hospital staff will gain any confidence from the Government saying the same thing it says year after year?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Carol Mochan
According to the care homes census, one in five care homes has closed since 2014, which means that there are 18 per cent less care homes than there were a decade ago, while demand is going rapidly upwards. Many more are likely to close over the coming years. That is the root cause of hospital overcrowding: people have nowhere to go. Cabinet secretary, is it not the case that the Government has lost control of social care?
