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 787 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Yes, I get that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Basically, that is an issue. I know that councils and local authorities think this way when doing their budgets, but from a sheer management perspective, it costs a lot more for a social worker to do that reporting than it would for an administrator to do it. Surely councils should be looking at ways of having that administrative support in place. That makes sense to me. Having been a councillor, I know that there would be a budget line for that. It is one that I would look at and say no to.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
What do you think of the graduate scheme?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Okay, then.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority: “Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
I have no further questions.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
When you are looking at different ways of working, you need to consider the bare bones of things. When a social worker turns up to support a family and says, “I’m from the council—I’m here to help”, the idea that they are there to help is not the person’s first thought. However, if the social worker says that they are from a third sector or other organisation, the person might automatically say what their problem is and be more open. Are there other ways that we can work to ensure that families actually engage? I am not saying that social workers are not professionals or that they are not doing their job to the best of their ability. All I am saying is that families always put up a barrier when someone says, “I’m here from the council—I’m here to help”, because that is not something that people often hear.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
You mentioned the graduate apprenticeship programme. Do you see that as a way forward? Would people be working in local communities and delivering from day 1? It is not a case of having your qualification, turning up and chapping at the door along with someone who is more senior, is it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Good morning. I will go down a similar route to that of my earlier questions. We keep hearing about the recruitment and retention of social workers and how we manage that.
I can understand that someone becomes a social worker for all the right reasons, including to help people and families. However, given the many challenges that you have outlined, there might be difficulties in continuing to deliver services. What would be the best way forward for us in dealing with recruitment and retention issues? I know that those are two separate aspects. First, there is a need to recruit people and, secondly, there is a need to retain them, once they are in post. How do we manage that and find a way forward?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Yes, that is helpful, particularly your mention of artificial intelligence, but that would be a whole different discussion.
Ben, do you have anything else to say on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
George Adam
Local authorities have a history of doing that, with people who have gone down one career path jumping to do something else, because they have the skill set from elsewhere. That was more a statement than a question. Thank you.
