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 1158 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
Are there any barriers to different groups working together? Earlier, you talked about making the best use of money, and you said that direct pots of funding can restrict partnership working. Are you facing any barriers?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
You mentioned community link workers and said that you had a vibrant third sector. Lots of money is being invested in mental health. When groups or organisations in localities get funding from the Scottish Government, is the availability of that extra pathway made clear enough to local authorities or GP practices, so that they are aware that another group has been created that can help?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
I ask Hannah Axon to comment.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
Thank you. Does Hannah Axon want to comment?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
I will ask about partnership working to address poor mental health. This question is for Fiona Davies and then Hannah Axon. How are integration joint boards and councils addressing the recommendation to
“urgently improve how mental health, primary care, housing, employability, and welfare support services work together to address and prevent the causes of poor mental health, by developing shared goals and targets, sharing data and jointly funding services”?
Criminal Justice Committee
Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
I was not on the committee when the report was published, so I am not as expert on the matter as everybody else on the committee. Looking again at some of the responses to the committee, I go back to my previous comment about timescales and actions. I have heard a lot about the Caledonian system, which seems to get a lot of good press.
The justice partners round-table discussion is referred to. Again, the response says that areas of focus will be discussed over the next 12 months. There is going to be a lot of consideration and exploration, but there do not ever seem to be any firm actions or timescales for implementation. In the area that we are talking about, the quicker we implement the recommendations that the experts tell us will work, the quicker we will see results and improvements in the justice system for the people who need it most.
Again, we need timescales and actions. It seems that people are just talking about things rather than actually doing things.
Criminal Justice Committee
Deaths in Prison Custody
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
My colleague Russell Findlay has made most of the points that I was going to make. However, going through the cabinet secretary’s letter, I noted that there is a bit in it about “successive increases” and the fact that resource has been increased by 60 per cent. I want to know more about that, because a 60 per cent increase sounds really good, but if the budget was not there in the first place, was that enough? Was the original budget enough? Did the 60 per cent increase cover things that should have been implemented in the first place?
The cabinet secretary also says that the recommendations
“are complex and require resource”,
which, again, comes back to funding. She mentions the national health service and how it will have everything done by the end of 2023. There is only one month left in 2023, so I would expect an update on how that will be achieved. Basically, we have one and a half months left, and the final two weeks will be the Christmas holidays.
There is no note on whether Ms Imery will be staying on in her role, whether she has been replaced or whether the role has been ended. There is no information on that. The cabinet secretary mentions that she had a meeting with Ms Imery and that there was to be another on 21 November with Mr Matheson. Did that meeting take place? If so, what was the outcome?
I move on to the letter from Caroline Lamb. It says:
“As Ms Imery noted at the Justice Committee there was no timescale set for the implementation of the recommendations”.
I imagine that the NHS chief executives get paid a lot of money. Why did they not set their own timescales? It seems bizarre to have a report that made all those recommendations, but to have no timescales for when they will be implemented. What were the reasons for Ms Lamb and the chief executives not putting in their own timescales? She has now said that implementation will be
“by the end of this year.”
The Scottish Prison Service has given us an action plan that covers everything that it is working on along with the NHS. I note that one of the columns says what action will be taken
“in the next 2/3 months”,
but there is nothing in it. The year will end in a month and a half’s time. I would have expected to see all the actions that are happening with the SPS and the NHS. They basically have six weeks or whatever to go and implement all of this, but there is nothing in their action plan. I would have expected to see more in the Prison Service action plan.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
I would like to ask a wee question about recruitment and retention. What are the reasons for the high vacancy and turnover rates in our mental health workforce? What impact is reliance on locum workers having on service provision?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
Thank you for that. Given that we are short on time, Dr Srireddy, if you wanted to provide any further information, it would be helpful if you could do so in writing.
Can you comment on the effectiveness of the new mental health workforce roles, including any views that you might have on the recently published “Mental Health and Wellbeing—Workforce Action Plan 2023-2025”? Does the plan give you a sense of how we are going to achieve what it sets out?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Sharon Dowey
Action 15 in the “Mental Health Strategy: 2017-2027” is to
“Increase the workforce to give access to dedicated mental health professionals to all A&Es, all GP practices, every police station custody suite, and to our prisons. Over the next five years increasing additional investment to £35 million for 800 additional mental health workers in those key settings.”
Derek Frew and Dr Williams, what access do you have to mental health workers?
