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 1147 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
I will direct the first question to Mr Boyle, the Auditor General. Audit Scotland’s blog presents quite a bleak picture of performance in terms of access to child and adolescent mental health services, particularly given the significant investment that has been made. The blog says:
“But the picture today is similar to 2018, despite significant investment.”
Do we have any idea of the extent of the funding and whether we can track that spend against outcomes?
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
The Audit Scotland blog refers to a task force that was set up by the Scottish Government and COSLA in 2018, which concluded that earlier guidance and support was required for GPs, health visitors, school nurses and others. What guidance and support exists for those professions in 2021? What changes have been made?
That question is directed, in the first instance, at Dr Morton, after which Mr McKay from Unison might want to come in and anyone else who would like to comment.
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
The session 5 committee stated that the absence of basic data was a concern. I will read out some of the comments in that committee’s 2019 report on children and young people’s mental health. In relation to spending on CAMHS, the then Auditor General said that
“the numbers are so variable as not to be credible”.
Audit Scotland said:
“We saw gaps and problems throughout the system in terms of how the money is accounted for and, critically, in terms of what difference any of it makes to children. We have made a series of recommendations in the report that those things need to be sharpened.”
It also said:
“we understand that boards will choose which ones they want to measure, and that will make benchmarking very difficult.”
There is a common theme here.
In her response to that report, the then Minister for Mental Health outlined work that the Scottish Government was progressing with NHS National Services Scotland to improve the quality and scope of the available data. Considering that the report is now two years old, to what extent has the work been progressed?
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
Your comments are quite concerning, because they are the same as the comments that I have just read in the report that was published in 2018. That is why we are trying to look at where the money is going and whether we can measure what the outcomes are.
Mr McKay, would you like to comment?
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
Good morning. I am an MSP for South Scotland.
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
Thank you. Does anyone else want to come in?
Public Audit Committee
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Sharon Dowey
Does anyone else want to come in?
Public Audit Committee
“Community justice: Sustainable alternatives to custody”
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Sharon Dowey
Have they given any explanation at all of why there have not been any improvements?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Sharon Dowey
It seems that the OECD’s report on its review of the curriculum for excellence has the potential to address many of the issues that the Auditor General raised. We understand that the Scottish Government has accepted the report’s recommendations in full, including the recommendation on improved data to deliver outcomes. In the absence of improved data, how is the Scottish Government addressing the educational outcomes of pupils who are currently in the senior phase of education and who will not benefit from future reforms?
Public Audit Committee
“Community justice: Sustainable alternatives to custody”
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Sharon Dowey
On data and outcomes—about which our predecessor committee raised significant concerns—there is a recurring key audit theme about incomplete and poor-quality data, which prevents us from measuring the progress and success of a policy and whether it is delivering value for money. It is particularly frustrating that the impact of a lack of data was previously highlighted in Audit Scotland’s 2012 report, “Reducing reoffending in Scotland”. Are you aware of any improvements that have been made in that area over the past nine years?
