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 1901 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Bob Doris
It is simply a terminology question, so a yes or no answer would be great, if that is possible. I just want to understand the issue better. The syllabus and the content did not shrink, and they will not shrink in the coming year, either. It is what is externally assessed that will be narrowed, to allow more focus on teaching and learning. Is that a better way of putting it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Bob Doris
Earlier, we heard that the syllabus for students and the course requirements in terms of content did not shrink, but that the externally examined aspects of the curriculum narrowed. That clarity was helpful. We know that the situation will be the same for the exam results that will come out in August 2023. When does the SQA anticipate returning to the pre-pandemic breadth of content for external examination? It would be helpful to know that.
There is also the issue of consistency. Will the awards in August 2023 and August 2022 be comparable, by and large? Given that there are issues around comparability, it would be helpful to know that.
Due to time constraints, I will roll in a third aspect to my question—it would be really helpful if I could get answers on all three parts. Professor Louise Hayward is looking at what should be externally examined and at that balance more generally. Is it anticipated that the SQA will not return to the previous levels of external assessment because Professor Hayward might recommend something completely different? Why would we return to the old way of doing things when we are in a transition stage to a new way of doing things?
There are three aspects to that question, and I hope that you can pick up on all of them.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Bob Doris
I will not come back in with a question, but I just wanted to say that I thought that coursework never left, because it was part of the syllabus. It could be internally assessed rather than returning to external examination. I will leave that thought there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Bob Doris
I have a question that I want to ask later, but I will ask part of it now. We are talking about “lost learning”—learning that has been lost because of the disruption of Covid and because of a slimmed-down syllabus or a slimmed-down external examination diet, which will be the case again next year.
I want to be clear about the language that we use. Are we talking about “lost learning” because young people have gaps in their learning because schools were not open, or are we talking about it because of a slimmed-down syllabus in the classroom? Those are two different things, and I would like to be clear about the language.
I do not think that Michael Marra got an answer to his question about where lost learning is mapped and about its knock-on effects. For example, are active discussions taking place with universities about science, which is heavily content based and involves building blocks of learning? If a bit of the syllabus is taken out, that has to be picked up at first-year undergraduate level. Where is that mapped? Where is it reported?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Bob Doris
I know that Mr Quinn wants to come in, convener.
I am conscious that, rather than saying yes or no, Fiona Robertson has said that she is not sure whether it will be comparable. You have said that you might continue with the same method for the following academic year but that you might not, and that you would quite like to go back to some of the old ways of working. Much of the system is in flux at the moment, but stability would be really good for young people and schools. I am a wee bit disappointed that we do not have more clarity from the SQA in relation to this.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Bòrd na Gàidhlig
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Bob Doris
I want to check one thing. When the fourth school comes online in 2024—on schedule, I hope—will that meet the current demand retrospectively? I get the point that, when 2024 comes along, the demand may be greater again, so the local authority will always be playing catch-up on infrastructure in relation to demand. Will the current demand be met in 2024?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Bòrd na Gàidhlig
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Bob Doris
The deputy convener asked about staffing and recruitment, and Jim Whannel talked about demand outstripping supply, not just with staffing but with infrastructure. As a Glasgow MSP, I was interested to hear that there were 180 requests for primary school placements but that only 140 places were available. I know that Glasgow City Council has a draft Gaelic language plan out for consultation at the moment and that a fourth primary school will come online in 2024. What relationship does the bòrd have with the 32 local authorities in relation to their forward planning to ensure that there is sufficient staffing and infrastructure? As a constituency MSP, every year, I get requests for letters of support for appeals in relation to placement requests, particularly for Gaelic-medium primary school education. As a Glasgow MSP, I would find it helpful to hear any comments that you have on that relationship with the local authorities and on the support, the communication and the quality of the forward planning of each local authority to meet that demand and interest.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Bob Doris
Okay. That helps.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Bob Doris
Any other comments on that would be welcome, but I have one final thing that I want to ask about. Another aspect of regionalisation was that we wanted to make sure that, in colleges with a number of campuses, there is community outreach work to attract learners who would not normally go to college. I am not talking about learners who are at school, but those in the wider community who have not had a conventional learning pathway—that would be the jargon, I suppose. Hard-to-reach groups would be the other jargon. What work is going on, and has that been enhanced in any way by college regionalisation? How do we reach those students who would not normally get into learning? That is, of course, what the further education sector is there for as well. Any comments on that would be welcome.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Bob Doris
It has been interesting to hear about the varied experiences across the country. One of the aims of regionalisation was to make it easier and more straightforward for young people not only to move from school into the college sector, whether to do higher national diplomas, higher national certificates or foundation apprenticeships, but also to articulate from colleges into universities—to move straight into second year at university. Has it been students’ experience that things have improved in recent years in relation to both of those things? Is there an equality of status for those who are at college and doing an HND because that is what they need? There is not a self-fulfilling prophesy that they have to go to university; they go for the HND or the apprenticeship. Any comments on the equality of status across various courses would be very welcome.
