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 1213 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
Good afternoon. I will go back to the issue of pay. Mr Haggart, you told my colleague Katy Clark that the pay negotiations were taking place at the NJC at national level. There is talk of a 5 per cent pay increase, and Katy Clark already said that it looks like that is likely to be rejected. If the NJC arrives at a figure, whether it is 5 per cent, 6 per cent or something else, do you simply have to implement that figure out of your existing budget? I know that you have a seat round the table but could a decision be made in a national forum on a figure that you would just have to implement regardless?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
Thank you. Perhaps you cannot answer my next question and it needs to be asked of the chief constable. I raised the issue before. We can see how concerning the situation is, based on those numbers. One of the reasons that police officers are choosing to retire is the conditions that they are working in. For example, as I said, they are having their rest days and holidays cancelled at the last minute.
Do not answer this question if you feel that it is for the chief constable, but has there been any response to that? As an organisation, you would want to try to retain those police officers and their experience given the stark points that you have outlined to the committee. Are you able to say about how you will try to address that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
The letter contains very little information for us to go on. I take the view that there is a wider issue about access to criminal and civil justice and that people should have affordable access to what happens in their court cases. I do not know what the charge is—I do not know anything about that—but I assume that it is quite expensive, because a scheme would not otherwise be being created. I cannot comment further on that.
For me, there is a wider issue. Constituents have told me that they found it really difficult to get the transcripts of their court cases. There is probably not enough time in this committee’s agenda to deal with the wider issue but, if a commitment has been made and the Lord President is commenting on the matter, we probably need to pursue it, to make sure that that element of the system is in place.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
Okay, I will wait to see what the Wise Group says.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
Are members satisfied with the response? It took one half-hour meeting with the Wise Group for the matter to be raised with us, and I presume that it was not a one-off issue, or the Wise Group would not have raised it. I find it hard to believe that the issue is not being picked up, because it is quite a problem. The letter tells us that, on a Friday,
“the prison healthcare team would write a prescription for the patient to cover a week or so of opioid substitute treatment until the CAT team can pick the patient up.”
That is so lax.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Pauline McNeill
I am not really content with the response because, to me, it is an admission—I do not need the Wise Group to tell me that. The response suggests that the situation is okay. Other people know more about the issue than me—I am just a layperson reading about it—but, surely, if people are prescribed a week’s worth of treatment until the community addiction team can pick up the patient, there could be a gap. That is an admission, is it not? I am just—
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Pauline McNeill
I welcome these important regulations. Some members of the committee previously questioned the Scottish Legal Aid Board on behalf of practitioners about the fact that there was a disincentive to settle cases early. The regulations are helpful on every level and I support them.
Given what you said to Katy Clark about the pilots being a matter for the SCTS, what is the Government’s role? There must be one if we are being asked to consider it. Who has determined the things that we would expect to see in a pilot, such as how its success is measured? Is that the Government or the SCTS? I am seeking clarification on whether it is all a matter for the SCTS.
Criminal Justice Committee
Police Numbers and New Pension Arrangements
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Pauline McNeill
Because we do have that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Police Numbers and New Pension Arrangements
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Pauline McNeill
I have no objection to that, but it has spoken publicly about not answering phone calls on rest days, for example. As with most jobs, there is a lot of stuff that you are not required to do but you do it—it is that goodwill side of things. I do not mind if what you are asking for is written clarification of the new range of actions that it might take.
