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
I have Scottish Government figures, but I do not have a breakdown. I am impressed by the latest Scottish Government figures. I think that I am right in saying that, through the Scottish Government’s recruitment and retention action plan for disabled people, which was introduced a few years ago, we have increased the amount of disabled employees in the Scottish Government from 6.4 per cent in 2013 to 13.3 per cent in 2021. Therefore, the figure more than doubled in eight years.
Teams are set up in the Scottish Government to help to adapt workplaces so that they are accessible in order to help in recruitment of disabled people. A lot of good work is happening in the Scottish Government. I hope that that gives members some reassurance that we are trying to set an example.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
I expect that the Scottish Government has such data. I will happily come back to the committee on that. I will find out whether we have that information. I am sure that it must exist at national level.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
I would certainly revert to the public social partnerships, which we fund. They bring together the private sector, the public sector, the Government and disabled people’s organisations. I would revert to them to see whether there is a breakdown of their work and the statistics that you are looking for.
I hope that the public sector is an exemplar, and will be disappointed if there is part of the public sector in Scotland that is not accessible to disabled employees. You have taken evidence and I await your report. If the issue is identified as a problem, we will take that very seriously.
On the wider point that was made earlier about disabled people who have qualifications, we are always open to new ideas about how to address that. It is, of course, symptomatic of the wider disability employment gap and how we need to change the culture in Scotland and in our workplaces.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
The plans and policies that we have in the Government are signed up to by all the relevant policy areas. The transport question is a wider question that affects disabled people and other parts of the population. As I have said, there are specific forums that include people who have mobility issues, and their views are fed into transport policy. There is collective government: all policies are reflected through all areas of the Government.
I gave you the Scottish Government statistics. I do not have a breakdown of the number of disabled people working for individual Government departments—if it exists, I will send it to the committee—but I thought that the question was about the Scottish Government’s track record and, therefore, I gave an answer that I thought was a good and credible one on that issue, so I think that you are being slightly unfair when you ask whether I have brought a breakdown of every policy section in the Scottish Government. However, if that exists, I will—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
If it exists, I will send it to the committee.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Yes—although the Scottish Government civil service has its plan, which I referred to, and I gave you the Scottish Government statistics. I am not the permanent secretary and I am not in the civil service, but I am delighted with the progress that the permanent secretary is making.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Yes. You have highlighted the forthcoming bill; my officials will be engaging on that in relation to the employment sphere. Although it will not be a bill that is just about employment, we will certainly engage on it. Engagement has begun already, but things are at quite an early stage. Susan Ferguson will come in to elaborate on her involvement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Absolutely. I, too, was struck by the comment that that has been identified as an issue. The benefit of having a committee inquiry is that it can take evidence and flag up issues to Parliament and ministers. I will definitely take away that message from today and investigate the matter. I also await the committee’s recommendations.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Richard Lochhead
Like the committee, I have visited fair start Scotland projects and offices around the country. I was at the opening of the new office in Ayr a month or so ago, and I met disabled people whose lives have been turned around by getting work through fair start Scotland. I am sure that you have heard similar stories. It is humbling and heart-warming to hear how people’s lives have been transformed by getting into work. A lot of good stuff is happening but, as I said, if there are gaps, we want to know about them.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Road to Recovery Inquiry
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Lochhead
Many big employers in Scotland are doing a lot. We work closely with all of the business associations and organisations in Scotland on those agendas.
Small businesses and some medium-sized businesses might face some challenges. Clearly, we have to work with them so that they realise that there is a lot more that they can do. It is obviously easier for big organisations, such as banks or supermarkets, that have various departments and resources to devote to that work, but small and medium-sized businesses could do a lot more, too. We are trying to focus more on that.
