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 1290 contributions
|
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
I will move on to Alexander Stewart.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Thank you.
As there are no further comments, and given those points, which are on the record, are members agreed that we will not make any formal comments to the Parliament on the instruments? No member has objected, so we are agreed.
That concludes our consideration of the SSIs.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Thank you—we move to Alexander Stewart.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Item 2 is consideration of two negative Scottish statutory instruments. I refer members to paper 1. Do members have any comments on either instrument?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
The next item is to continue taking evidence for our inquiry into women’s unfair responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work. I welcome Satwat Rehman, chief executive officer, One Parent Families Scotland; Susie Fitton, policy officer, Inclusion Scotland; Catriona Melville, policy engagement and campaigns officer, Age Scotland; Margaret Lance, BEMIS and ethnic minority national resilience network; and Dr Patrycja Kupiec, chief executive officer, YWCA Scotland.
I refer members to papers 2 and 3. As we have a number of witnesses, I ask members to indicate which witnesses they are directing their discussion points to, and we can then open the floor to other witnesses for comment. If witnesses wish to respond to a question, please indicate that by typing R in the chat function—I will bring them in if time permits.
This is intended to be a discussion, so please do not feel that is a question-and-answer session; we are keen to hear discussion points from our witnesses, too. However, if any witnesses want simply to concur with what somebody else has said, it is not necessary to come in at that point; there will points when they will be brought in and they can make the point then. Members can also use the chat function on BlueJeans if they wish to intervene.
Since we have a lot of witnesses and members, you may not be able to see yourself on screen as the BlueJeans platform shows only nine people at any given time. The clerks will advise us if anyone loses their connection.
At the end of the session, if any witnesses have outstanding points that they wish to address, please follow up in writing and the committee will take that evidence into account.
I ask each witness to make a short opening statement, starting with Satwat Rehman.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Thank you for that. Those points are on the record.
Are there any further comments from members on the orders?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Who do you want to hear from, Fulton?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Do you want to go first, Satwat?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
Item 2 is to take evidence from our panel of witnesses on women’s unfair responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work. I am pleased to welcome Ruth Boyle, policy and parliamentary manager, Close the Gap—Ruth joins us remotely; Eilidh Dickson, policy and parliamentary manager, Engender; and Professor Norin Arshed, chair in entrepreneurship and innovation, school of business, University of Dundee. I invite each to make a short opening statement.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Women’s Unfair Responsibility for Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Joe FitzPatrick
I know that we are past our time, but just before we finish, I am keen to go round everyone for a quick and snappy comment about what we need to do as we move forward. I know that part of the discussion is about looking back at what went wrong, but what positives we can take from the pandemic?
Do you want to go first, Norin?
