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 1324 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
I want to raise the issue of further support for kinship families, which overlaps with much of the conversation that we have had. I am thinking specifically of how we can improve referral pathways and signposting. We have already touched on what happens when young people are in education. Should we be looking for a better model so that all the professionals who are involved—especially teachers—are aware of the needs of children in kinship care and of young carers in the classroom setting?
CELCIS’s survey highlighted the root of the situation when it identified that many children in kinship care have experienced trauma and that children in kinship care are less likely to receive mental health support than children in foster care. What is your view on that? How do we improve that model? I am thinking of the classroom setting in particular. Although we are not the education committee, there is an opportunity to take on board some of the work in that area.
I realise that that was a long question. Maybe we can hear from Vivien Thomson first, as she has touched on the issue.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
That is a very useful question/point, which we can perhaps take away and pursue.
Specifically, the committee wants to focus attention on the potential model to change the situation and get it right. As Micheleine Kane has outlined, local authorities all have different things going on, and it will often come down to the key people in a council who are driving services to change and respond. What would you like to see that model look like—especially for informal kinship carers—and how do you think that it would best be developed? Micheleine Kane touched upon legislation. A national rate has also been highlighted, with the suggestion that that change should really have been put in place already.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
I am sorry—I wittered on a bit there. The question was around what you think we should suggest to help change this. That is the key point that we want to get into.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
Thank you.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
I am not sure who else wants to come in. Should teachers be informed of children’s status? Should “YC” or “KC” appear next to someone’s name in the register, to indicate that they are a young carer or are in kinship care? That would flag it up to teachers—especially in secondary school settings, where young people move around and see a different teacher in each class—so that they would understand and could sometimes cut them some slack. That point is always put to me when I speak to young carers, so I wanted to include that potential model in my question.
10:00Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
That leads on to the point that I wanted to make. I am sure that every MSP has dealt with cases involving informal kinship care. Often, it is grandparents who informally take on the kinship care role, and in many cases they have retired. To go back to Linda Richards’s point, such people are often worried about engaging with social work and what that might mean. To be honest, they can be worried about how they might be judged.
For a future model, should informal kinship carers benefit from a recommended allowance? Given your experience, what would that look like, and how could it work for such families, who are often nervous about engaging with local authorities on the issues?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
Thank you for that very powerful testimony, Micheleine.
Does anyone else want to come in on that point?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
Thank you for that—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
Good morning. Thank you for joining us.
I want to follow up on Marie McNair’s questions. Why has progress not been made on the issue? There is frustration about that in Parliament. The Education and Skills Committee made numerous recommendations on the subject, but those do not seem to have been implemented. Is it the case that a recommended allowance has not been implemented in Scotland purely because of the financial situation in which councils have found themselves?
For example, I was looking at COSLA’s submission to the committee, which states that, from the start of the work on a national allowance, delivery
“would not be possible within the current level of ... funding”,
and that the Scottish Government, having cut council funding, would have to fully fund the allowance in order for it to be possible.
I will bring Laura Caven in to comment on why we have not seen that standard being delivered, because it is now years since it was expected.
09:15Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Miles Briggs
We touched on the Promise when speaking to the previous panel of witnesses. Many MSPs are feeling frustrated that the Promise is not being delivered. In your professional experience, where are the problems in delivering that? From most of the submissions that we have had, it seems that local authorities are being tasked with delivering the Promise but are not being given the resources to do that.
I start with Micheleine Kane and then I will see who else wants to come in.
