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 3077 contributions
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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 27 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
I was particularly struck by the work that all the national companies are doing with schools around Scotland. I talked to a teacher who was involved in a Scottish Opera production with her school about how transformative that was for the entire school. That was a big undertaking, and it developed the self-esteem of the young people. I want to ask you about the resource implications of doing that, particularly on the school side, because it is quite a big commitment for a school.
We have also seen changes in the way that music tuition is provided for across councils. Is there resource available for schools to interact with in order to make your work in schools effective? What are your reflections, from the council resource side of things, on the music resources and general resources that are needed in schools to make your work effective?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 27 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Would you make a distinction between a democratisation of culture and a cultural democracy? Does what you describe—the work that you have done with the Culture Collective and the studies that you have done in Culter—really focus more on what a cultural democracy looks like locally rather than just on widening participation and access more generally?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 27 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Those were interesting points about how the world might be changing a little after Covid. Are there trends in terms of availability of time; is time becoming harder or easier to find? There is growing interest in the concept of a four-day week, which is being implemented in a minority of situations. What are your thoughts on that? In particular, how does that play out in relation to time not just to participate, but to organise the voluntary effort that is needed to, for example, run a third-sector group? How does that vary in communities that might be time rich or time poor? Reflections on that would be useful.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 27 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
I thank the cabinet secretary for that response and welcome her to her new post. We look forward to working with her constructively.
It is critical that every child and young person has access to that support. As the cabinet secretary has already said, councils have been required to share six-monthly reports on access to counsellors in secondary schools and community-based services. Those reports show that the efforts to increase access to counsellors in high schools are really succeeding. However, we lack the equivalent data for primary schools. What consideration has the Government given to expanding the requirement for councils to produce those six-monthly reports to primary schools as well?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 27 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update on what progress it has made towards delivering the Bute house agreement commitment to ensure that every child has access to mental health and wellbeing support, including counselling services, in primary school. (S6O-02152)
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
I have a question for Paul Brignal. There has been a bit of discussion this morning about comparing apples and pears and the difference between regulated and unregulated tracks. Is the design of your track the same as that of a GBGB track or is it fundamentally different in shape?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
On that basis, is the inherent risk that a dog faces in running at 40mph around an oval track in Thornton the same as the risk that a dog faces in running around an oval track in London, Glasgow or anywhere else?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
Why am I wrong?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
To go back to my question, are you looking at straight tracks?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 26 April 2023
Mark Ruskell
There is substantial veterinary evidence, which the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission has reflected on. Clearly, the GBGB will be looking at that evidence as part of its own review.
I come back to my question. Where is your evidence that what you have in Thornton, with dogs running round an oval track at 40mph, is different from dogs running round an oval track at 40mph at Shawfield? How are the inherent risks of a hobby sport any different from those of a professional track?
