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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Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Devolution Post-EU
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
Good morning and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2023 of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee.
We have received apologies from Maurice Golden. I would like to express my thanks to him, Ben Macpherson and Dr Alasdair Allan, who are all moving on to new parliamentary duties, for having served on the committee. We wish you all well for the future and thank you for your incredible contribution to the work of the committee.
Our first agenda item is to look at how devolution is changing post-European Union. Our inquiry has been on-going and our final evidence session is with the cabinet secretary.
I welcome to the committee Angus Robertson MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, and, from the Scottish Government, Gerald Byrne, head of constitutional policy, and Euan Page, head of United Kingdom frameworks.
I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement on the inquiry.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Devolution Post-EU
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
Thank you for your opening statement and for your letter in response to the committee’s questions that arose from our inquiry on how devolution is changing now that we are outside the EU.
I have a topical question to ask. Yesterday, we heard news of the success of the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012, with a 13 per cent reduction in the number of alcohol deaths in Scotland. It has proved to be a policy that works in that area. There is a request that the minimum unit value be increased, which is one of the things that we have covered in the committee as being a potential grey area following the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and withdrawal from the EU due to Brexit. Is the Government considering that at the moment? Are you concerned about it?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
Does anyone have more questions or comments for the cabinet secretary?
Members indicated disagreement.]
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
I absolutely agree, cabinet secretary.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Devolution Post-EU
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
Mr Macpherson has a supplementary question in this area as well.
10:00Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Devolution Post-EU
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
We have run slightly over where I had hoped to be, cabinet secretary, but I think that we have exhausted questions on that area. Thank you. We will suspend briefly while officials change over.
10:18 Meeting suspended.10:23 On resuming—
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
The committee has visited many areas of Scotland in the process of our inquiry and we have found the community-based or place-based aspect of what is going on to be important. Key to the evidence that we have taken on all those visits has been the input of the Culture Collective and how successful and well received that has been. Therefore, I am interested in your thinking about the future of that model.
Elite artists and national performing companies are in a different bracket from what might be delivered on the ground in local communities. It has been suggested that the model for culture should be like the sportscotland one, with elite activities funded in one way and grass-roots activities funded at a different level, on a local basis. Have you given any thought to that dynamic? How well do you think that the model is working at the moment?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
I want to ask a supplementary question about the issues that Mr Cameron has asked about.
A theme that has arisen is that a lot of organisations that work in the cultural sector felt that during Covid they all of a sudden became trusted organisations by Creative Scotland and other funders. They could no longer deliver projects that had been funded and planned, but they were given the freedom to do something appropriate for communities, and they felt really trusted. Organisations have felt that they are on a treadmill in respect of the overheads that are involved in applying for funding from Creative Scotland, local authorities and other funders, such as the Big Lottery Fund.
In Wester Hailes, we heard about doughnut funding and that the core costs for organisations are never funded. When something is project based, a project adviser might come on for a certain amount of time, and maybe organisations get members of staff. However, it is really hard to get funding for all the fundamental core costs of getting places cleaned and swept and the administration of bookings, for example. Is that something that you have been made aware of? Is the Scottish Government considering the matter?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
We have exhausted our time with you this morning, cabinet secretary. I thank you very much again for your attendance.
I have a few closing remarks to make. I again thank the members for whom this is their last time at committee. I wish them all the best in their new roles. This is the final meeting before the summer recess, so I thank all members, the clerks, the officials and advisers to the committee for their hard work during what has been a very busy time, as is evidenced by the fact that two inquiries have been discussed this morning.
I hope that everyone manages to have a well-earned rest, and I look forward to seeing you all again in September.
Meeting closed at 11:13.Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Devolution Post-EU
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Clare Adamson
Mr Bibby, do you have a supplementary question in that area?
