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 932 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
George Adam
I have a general question for everyone. Do any of the witnesses have a view on the different types of educational establishment that should come under the inspectorate under the bill?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
George Adam
To follow on from Willie Rennie’s question, I note that we had the teaching unions in last week, and they have a simple solution, which is to take every one of you out of the equation and just put them in there, because they have all the answers. They know what learners want and how the system works, and they think that they are the ones who can do it all. They think that that would simplify the whole process, rather than have this 1940s MGM musical chorus line kind of a committee. What are your thoughts on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
George Adam
Speaking as a parent, and a grandparent now, one of the most important aspects is that you want the best for your children and grandchildren. I might have overegged my initial question a bit, but I was quite struck by the fact that education professionals came in and said:
“teacher voice will ... be cognisant of the interests of learners”.—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 25 September 2024; c 35.]
That was the actual quotation. I am more on your side with this. If we take out the political element that Gavin Yates brought up—although, for us, it is important—at the end of the day, parents just want what is best for their children, and children want to be valued and engaged in the process.
Given the massive number of stakeholders, how do we get the process to be constructive and make everybody feel that they are getting something out of it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
George Adam
I am just trying to get everyone’s ideas about how we go forward.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
Thank you, convener. It is not normally said about me that I am patient, so that is a nice wee change.
Good morning, everyone. My question was originally going to be for Fiona Robertson, but you can all chip in, should you wish.
When there is organisational change, transferring staff over in their entirety is not unusual. It is the best way to work nine times out of 10. However, there are specific challenges with the SQA, as some of my colleagues have already mentioned. Fiona, you talked about the bill providing the scaffolding, but when the scaffolding goes up, you still need to deliver and get the job done. Last week, we heard from various individuals who told us that the educational landscape was challenging and very busy, and that there are a lot of people in it. How do you feel about this change? Are you and, indeed, all the organisations going to be able to work together to ensure that you can deliver this time? The scaffolding has been put up, and it is time to do the job. How do you do it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
Thank you, convener. It is not normally said about me that I am patient, so that is a nice wee change.
Good morning, everyone. My question was originally going to be for Fiona Robertson, but you can all chip in, should you wish.
When there is organisational change, transferring staff over in their entirety is not unusual. It is the best way to work nine times out of 10. However, there are specific challenges with the SQA, as some of my colleagues have already mentioned. Fiona, you talked about the bill providing the scaffolding, but when the scaffolding goes up, you still need to deliver and get the job done. Last week, we heard from various individuals who told us that the educational landscape was challenging and very busy, and that there are a lot of people in it. How do you feel about this change? Are you and, indeed, all the organisations going to be able to work together to ensure that you can deliver this time? The scaffolding has been put up, and it is time to do the job. How do you do it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
Last week, we heard much in evidence about the independence of the inspectorate. Some of my colleagues have concerns about ministerial control. I tried to assure them that ministers are far too busy to plan world domination, but they still have concerns about there being a possible power grab. My question is probably best directed at Janie McManus. In your experience, how often have the Government or ministers directed the work of the inspectorate? For example, have they said, “Gonnae go and check out that school there”? Has there been anything at all like that from the Government?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
To follow on from that, how frequently have the powers under section 66 of the 1980 act been used by ministers?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
I have a fair idea of the answer that I am going to get but I will ask the question anyway. What should be the make-up of the board of qualifications Scotland?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
George Adam
In evidence last week and earlier today, the committee has heard that there is a broad landscape with many players. I do not doubt for a minute that teachers are an extremely important part of that, but there are many other stakeholders and people involved. There will always be someone who is saying, “We should have representation on said board because of X, Y and Z”, so how do you see the plan for this? Laurence Findlay, you have gone down this route because you mentioned the local authority point of view—and I understand that perspective, because I used to be a councillor. We will not keep everybody happy all the time, but how do you create a board that people feel is representative of all those who are involved in education in Scotland?
