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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Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Conspiracy theorists could suggest that that was a strange time for the feed to call it a day. [Laughter.] We will wait a second to see whether Kirsty can come back in.
I am sorry, Kirsty. Your sound cut out. We got to the point when you held your hands up and said that you had made a mistake, and that you had given history teachers the courtesy of being anonymised but not the SQA. You told us that you had received a letter and were about to tell us something, but the screen went totally blank. We could not hear any of the part that followed, so could you repeat that bit?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
I find that quite shocking. I understand names having to be redacted—that is acceptable—but the SQA is a public body and it should be accountable. It has been in front of this committee and others. I am extremely concerned if it is now seeking to vet further parts of the survey that you conducted. It was not the SQA’s survey. It might be unhappy with elements of it, but it should not be trying to sterilise it in any way to reduce the criticism. Where does this end up? Could it become a legal matter?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Those are stark and alarming figures. Have you ever seen anything like this? Is there any comparison that can be made?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Youth Parliament
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Thank you very much. That concludes our evidence session. We have significantly gone over our allocated time, so thank you for your patience. However, that shows the level of interest from members and the fact that you have given comprehensive answers on a number of issues. Beinn Grant, I cannot give you a guarantee, but the impression that the committee had was that we could come back to this subject, perhaps annually. This is the first time that the committee has decided to do have such an evidence session, but the evidence that you have given us today has been very helpful not just in relation to what the Parliament is looking at at the moment, but on some of the issues that we should consider in the future.
I thank you all for your time as MSYPs and for the extra roles that you have taken on in the organisation, and for coming here today.
I will suspend the meeting for about 10 minutes.
11:03 Meeting suspended.11:15 On resuming—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Welcome back. We move on to our next agenda item, which is an evidence session with the Scottish Association of the Teachers of History on the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s “Higher History Review 2024”.
I welcome the witnesses. Joining us remotely is Kirsty MacDonald, the faculty head of social subjects at Paisley grammar school and president of the Scottish Association of the Teachers of History. Joining us in the room are Rebecca Hanna, who is a teacher of history and politics at Linlithgow academy, and Andy Johnston, who is a history teacher at Ross high school. Both are committee members of SATH.
Your microphones are operated remotely, so you do not need to worry about them. I understand that Kirsty MacDonald wants to make an opening statement, so we will go straight to you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Were you surprised that there was not an immediate reaction from the SQA and Fiona Robertson? Why did it take so long for them to be almost dragged kicking and screaming to do the review? There are still concerns that the review was not wholly independent, but what took so long?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Rebecca, I will go back to your point about the letter that appeared in TES the night before Fiona Robertson and Jenny Gilruth came to the committee. It was put to us that the letter had been authored by the two individuals because they wanted almost to set the record straight, as if what we had been hearing and reading in the public domain was not correct.
What are your members’ views of that letter and its contents? Did it genuinely seem to come from people who had at heart the best interests of the higher history exam and history departments, or did it seem to be more a blatant defence of the SQA?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
“Higher History Review 2024”
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
That is because you are not getting the information that you need.
My follow-up question was to be to ask how this is impacting on people who are presenting for higher history this year. A lot of your faculties and so on have probably brought history and modern studies together. Are teachers advising pupils to study modern studies rather than history? Is the concern so big that some pupils are being put off studying history at higher level, because of what has happened?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Youth Parliament
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
One of the issues that we currently debate quite a lot in Parliament is the rise in the number of cases of violence in schools. Are you looking at that, either as a committee or more widely as a Parliament?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Youth Parliament
Meeting date: 22 January 2025
Douglas Ross
Beinn Grant, can I bring you in at this point? I represent a very rural region in the Scottish Parliament; other members represent urban constituencies or regions. You represent Perthshire South and Kinross-shire, which is more rural. How does that rural-urban split play out in the Scottish Youth Parliament? Is there any concern that rural issues are perhaps not prioritised, or do you feel that there is enough coverage of those points?
