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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 2597 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Colin Beattie
Does the information exist?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Colin Beattie
Is it the body that is directly involved in the matter, rather than the individual colleges?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Colin Beattie
It is probably worth noting that, in addition to the £4.7 million, there has been an increase of 7.6 per cent in the sector’s capital funding. However, that figure is relatively small compared with the backlog.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Colin Beattie
Can you say who might hold those figures?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
In the previous session of Parliament, our predecessor committee carried out some scrutiny work that mainly covered the debt arrangement scheme. That revealed huge pressures within the money advice sector and the availability of advisers to assist and support people who were in financial difficulty. Clearly, the bill covers a highly specialised area. Providing assistance in that area is not something that will be easy or simple for a money adviser. They need training and expertise.
I think that the minister said there might be only three cases a year, and there was a question of whether that would give someone the level of experience that is needed to give the best support. Is it the intention that every money adviser will receive training or be authorised in some way to make the judgments that are necessary in relation to the mental health moratorium?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (North-east and Moray)
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
I will turn to the opening statement by Daria Shapovalova. It is interesting that you referred to what is happening in respect of the just transition in other countries. As has been discussed today, there is uncertainty in some areas about what “just transition” means to particular sectors. Have people overseas done better on defining “just transition”? Do they recognise a just transition? What about measurements? Have people elsewhere got in place anything that is basically better than what we are doing? Are there lessons that we can learn from them?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (North-east and Moray)
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
From what you are saying, it seems that there is a bit of a worry that a lot of countries are not making a co-ordinated effort in heading to net zero and so forth.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
Minister, you made reference to capacity in the money advice sector. If I interpret what you said correctly, the assumption is that the existing capacity is adequate to deal with any potential additional work arising from the new initiative. However, concerns have been expressed about the money advice sector having the capacity to deal with supporting people who want to access the mental health moratorium. In addition, I take on board what Richard Dennis said about the likely volumes and the experience that will be gained by individual money advice staff.
Will the Scottish Government provide the industry training and the additional funding that might be needed? Will the Government train all the money advisers who are needed, or will there be specialist money advisers who deal only with the mental health moratorium? In that case, capacity issues will immediately arise. For example, money advisers who operate in a specialised area might not be available locally. How will that be handled?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
One of the major issues that I am circling round to is whether, when a person contacts a money adviser, there will be the option for a face-to-face discussion. If it becomes a specialised area with only a handful of real experts in the money advice sector, there will be a tendency for them to be focused in urban areas and so on, so people outside those areas might be expected to go online. All the members around this table deal with vulnerable people. I do not know about others, but I do not deal with any of them online. Online contact does not seem the right way to empathise with a person who has mental health issues, and take them through the process. The key question is: will face-to-face advice be available regardless? I suspect that most of it will have to be provided face to face.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 November 2023
Colin Beattie
I really—
