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 235 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
There is work under way. It would probably take me a while to dig out the information now, but I am happy to follow up with the committee on the exact timetables. We are reviewing some of our plans—2024 comes to mind as a target date. However, we rely on people self-reporting disabilities—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
In addition, I note that the Scottish Government does not collect all the data; a lot of the labour-market data is collected at United Kingdom level. We have given a commitment to look at what we can do in Scotland to improve the data. I know that Lewis Hedge will want to say something, because he is much closer than I am to that particular aspect.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
We carried out a review of supported employment, which reported last year. We are working through the recommendations. I would want to double-check which recommendations might link to your question, because a lot of issues along those lines, which we have given a commitment to take forward, were identified.
On the “no one left behind” approach, I take your point about needing a single standard across the country and there being a postcode lottery. Obviously, if the committee has more to say about that in its inquiry, I will certainly want to hear it.
The “no one left behind” approach is about person-centred support so that, locally, people can have help that is bespoke for their needs. The case worker who helps them will deal with transport and other issues. We are trying to take a person-centred approach so that, if a person has transport challenges in a rural area or elsewhere, they will get advice and help with that as part of their support package.
We are trying to address the issue through taking a person-centred approach to help people. That could be about help with childcare or transport. The approach has been developed over the past couple of years, and we are hoping to build on it.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Yes. It is fair to say that we agree with the sentiment of what you have said. That issue is getting a lot more recognition in Government and in general debates, particularly on issues that relate to young people and disabilities.
As members may know, the Government is now committed to the first national transitions to adulthood strategy. The strategy will address that very issue. My colleagues across Government are working together on that because, as Graham Simpson has said, it is about education and young people coming through school and into the workplace. Ms Haughey and Ms McKelvie, who are two of the ministers involved, will give evidence on that to the Education, Children and Young People Committee later this month. The Economy and Fair Work Committee might wish to liaise with them, as they will be giving evidence on the Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill. Members will be aware of that member’s bill that is before Parliament.
The issue is on the Government’s agenda. We are happy to work with committees and members who introduce members’ bills, but we are committed to the first strategy.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Yes. I will certainly do that.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
I do not have exactly such information. As I have said, we have moved towards the “no one left behind” approach over the past two or three years at a decentralised local level in order to allow local employment partnerships to come up with bespoke solutions for their areas. Many of the projects that are funded locally are for disabled people and other people who are far from the labour market. The approach is very localised.
There is, of course, a platform that brings all the “no one left behind” partnerships together to discuss common issues. I hope that, discrepancies and postcode lotteries are identified at the national level. However, I do not have any direct data that compare different areas that I can give to the committee.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
There is currently just under £70 million for employability support in the draft budget that is before Parliament. The £53.06 million that was initially budgeted for and then removed was not a cut to existing services; the money was to fund additional work that we wanted to undertake. However, that work will not happen now, because the money has been removed due to budget pressures facing the Government and the cost of living crisis.
The budget will go through Parliament, so the funding will be there for the employability schemes. There were plans for additional work on tackling child poverty and on other ways in which we could play a role in employability schemes and so on, but those things will not happen to the same extent due to budget having been removed.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
No—it was solely a budget decision. As I said before, additional money was going to come into the portfolio; it is now not coming, as opposed to existing budgets being cut.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
I have discussions through the employability work. As for Colin Smyth’s examples, I am not aware that I have been directly contacted by any of those organisations. Of course, this is all part of the general concern that has been expressed by many organisations in the third sector in particular, which I referred to before. Of course, we are aware of the issue.
There are financial and budget decisions that I am unable to fix because that is above my pay grade in the Government.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Yes. It is a point that is made regularly—I am not denying that. Ever since I have been an MSP—going back to 1999—the third sector and others have regularly made the point that they would prefer long-term certainty through provision of three-year budgets or whatever. However, because of how the financial settlement is set up for the Scottish Parliament, it is not easy to deliver that.
