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 1475 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 October 2021
Martin Whitfield
I have a couple of matters to raise. The one that is most relevant in respect of the code is the training that will be required for both new and existing members. How do you plan to meet that need?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
As you have said, it is all about the relationship with people in the polling station.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Are you aware of any examples of your being unable to trace where the slogan, picture or whatever had come from during the most recent election?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Not in the slightest. Thank you for putting all of that on the record. I—and, I am sure, committee members—also want to thank the local authorities and all the almost unnoticed people who allow the elections to go ahead safely.
Our questions are grouped according to theme, just to make it easier to answer them, and I will kick off with the voter experience. Clearly the election went ahead successfully in incredibly challenging circumstances, but do you have any comments about the planning and the work that went on to make the poll safe for individual voters. Malcolm, do you want to kick off on that?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Good morning and welcome to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee’s third meeting in session 6. Today, the committee will hear evidence on the 2021 election, but, first, there is a decision to be made. Do members agree to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Just to pursue that, I note that disability organisations have said that the experience of disabled people over a number of elections now has been less favourable than that of other people. Perhaps I can put you on the spot. Will that situation change in May, or will the journey be longer than that? What assistance do you need to shorten the journey to ensure that the experience of disabled people is the same as—or, indeed, better than—that of others?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Is an investigation into how parties or individuals approached the spend taking place or planned? That would seem to be a prerequisite to the discussion that Edward Mountain has raised about raising the spend.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Thank you for putting that on the record.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
That challenge also occurs in other jurisdictions that require imprints.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Scottish Parliament Election 2021
Meeting date: 23 September 2021
Martin Whitfield
Following on from what you have said, and without naming names, are you confident in the capacity across Scotland? If you were to use a red, amber, green rating, which colour would you choose?
