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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Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
I am looking at the clock. We have a few more sections to cover, so is it okay if we move on, Ross?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2022 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. The first item on our agenda is an evidence session on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. We will hear from two panels of witnesses. I welcome our first panel: Jackie Irvine, who is chief executive of the Care Inspectorate; Claire Burns, who is the director of CELCIS; Councillor Tony Buchanan, who is a councillor on East Renfrewshire Council and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities spokesperson on children and young people; and Mike Burns, who is assistant chief officer at Glasgow City Council and vice-convener of Social Work Scotland.
As you would expect, we have a lot of ground to cover, so we will move straight to members’ questions, starting with Stephen Kerr.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
Stephanie Callaghan also has some questions on this topic.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
Stephen Kerr has a supplementary question.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
I have a follow-up question, and I am not sure which of the panel members is best placed to answer it.
While the national care service is being designed—and we hear a lot about that: it is being co-produced, and a consultation will take place—where should the Government’s forward planning focus be? That is a bit of a vague question. Where should the Government’s focus be while it is designing the national care service? The Government still has to provide children’s services while the NCS is being designed, so where should the Government’s focus be in relation to existing children’s services?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
You are not very good at making the briefest of comments.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
On that, with the clear message about making things simpler, we will draw to a close. I thank Iain Nisbet, Cameron-Wong McDermott and Fraser McKinlay for joining us. We will consider our final agenda items in private.
12:18 Meeting continued in private until 12:59.Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
You spoke about the human rights-based approach. What are the risks of having a partial impact assessment at this stage? What are the human rights concerns about working in that way?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
Bob, please move on to your questions on kinship.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Sue Webber
There was a lot in your answer, Cameron-Wong. Members will pick up on many of those topics separately in their questions. Impact assessments are a particular example. I ask Stephanie Callaghan to continue with the human rights theme.
11:15