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 1879 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Bob Doris
Thank you, Margaret. I appreciate that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Bob Doris
Thank you, convener. I think that Simon Cameron will be best placed to answer the question. The exchange between you and Mr Cameron was fascinating.
The Scottish Government has been pretty clear that permanent contracts should be secured with the additional baseline funding. Mr Cameron, do you anticipate that there will be many more permanent contracts as a result of that funding?
I imagine that there may be two reasons for not flipping a temporary contract into a permanent contract, but we need clarity. First, a local authority may wish to redeploy that resource to a different post in a school, doing a different task, in which case, that contract should surely be permanent. Secondly, the local authority may have to do some form of external recruitment to make sure that it is abiding by the law on recruitment and employment.
I just want clarity. The expectation is that there will be permanent contracts. Whether the configuration of staff is as it currently looks is one thing, but we are expecting permanent contracts. Will Simon Cameron give us more clarity on that?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Bob Doris
Our papers note that, if the cross-party group was to get the approval of the committee, I would be a member. I attended the first meeting, which Beatrice Wishart spoke about. Clearly, therefore, I may be a bit prejudiced—in a positive sense—as to whether the group should go forward. Ms Wishart, I very much hope—I am sure—that it will draw on the lived experience of those who have had to endure poverty not just currently but over a number of years.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Bob Doris
The minister said that election offices in each local authority area will remind individuals to ensure that their voter registration is still valid and at the address where they stay, remind them that they have a postal vote and ask whether they wish to retain it. Is there a uniform approach to that throughout Scotland? The Electoral Management Board for Scotland is involved with each local government election, but are there 32 ways that that happens in Scotland—one per local authority—or is there a more standardised approach?
I do not expect the minister to have the answer at his fingertips, but I ask in case the committee wants in future to examine the management of postal votes throughout Scotland. I am not saying that it will, but the convener’s question was interesting.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
Finally, convener, can I just ask the cabinet secretary—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
What engagement work is planned for the college and university sectors between now and May to establish that the funding, whatever it may be, can be used most effectively?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
I do not doubt the financial challenges that the Scottish Government faces in setting the budget, but Colleges Scotland says that it has had a 2.6 per cent real-terms cut to its revenue budget, and 38 per cent of school leavers from the 20 per cent most deprived cohorts according to the Scottish index of multiple deprivation go to Scotland’s colleges. Has the Scottish Government had discussions with Colleges Scotland about, or made any assessment of, the impact of what that body tells us is a 2.6 per cent real-terms cut?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
For once, this will be brief. Would it be possible to get at some point the full quantum of spending on colleges reported in the one place, so that the committee does not have to do its own budget scrutiny and look at other committees’ scrutiny to get a global figure for the money that is to be spent in colleges in the coming financial year?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
I want to explore the line of questioning that the convener previously explored in the evidence session with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Just for clarity, are the additional moneys that are now baselined in next year’s budget ring fenced, and—if this is not contradictory—are they ring fenced with a degree of flexibility so that, for example, there must be—[Inaudible.]—permanent contracts but the balance between classroom assistants and teachers is up to each local authority to decide on the basis of what best meets local needs? I would get that.
In addition, other than the teacher census, what is the reporting exercise for this? If we increase the number of teachers, that might not involve a significant fall in the number of temporary teachers, because temporary posts could be converted to permanent posts and new teachers could come in for specific projects on a temporary basis—it would not tell the whole story. Will we have a consistent reporting exercise across 32 local authorities, to better understand what is happening with teachers and classroom assistants in Scotland? If the teacher census could do that, that would be great, but, if it cannot, can the Scottish Government do something else so that, in a few months’ time, as part of on-going budget scrutiny, our committee can see what progress has been made?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Bob Doris
Thank you, cabinet secretary.
