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 935 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Willie Rennie
You are not looking at the whole system, though, are you? You have already decided that you are creating a national care service, which will have ramifications for children’s services. You are not considering services in the round. You have decided that you will take one part out of the system, and you will then decide, as an afterthought, what children’s services are going to do in response to that disruption.
So, you are not looking at things in the round. You have talked an awful lot this morning about co-design. If, in the co-design process—which will presumably include the recipients of services as well as those who provide them—it is decided that it would be better to leave the structure as it is, are you going to undo all this?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Willie Rennie
Not this.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Willie Rennie
That makes my point for me—I am sorry to interrupt, Mr Stewart. You are making this up as you go along.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Willie Rennie
You are already deciding that you will have a big disruption, with a new law to create a national care service, but without even deciding what is going to be in the national care service. That is making it up as you go along.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
We have got to the nub of the issue about what the barriers to progress are. I think that everybody apart from Vicky Irons accepts that there are problems, but they do not want children’s services to be included in the national care service. The problem that Vicky identified relates to having two employers, two systems and two cultures. I would like to hear from her how that manifests itself and what it means for the recipients of the services.
I would also like to hear from Highland Council whether it has overcome the problem of having two employers through the way that it has organised its services.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
Would any of those problems be solved by the inclusion of children’s services in the national care service? Vicky Irons believes that they would, but does anybody else agree?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
That is not what I asked. Would the problems that have been identified by Highland Council and Dundee health and social care partnership be solved by the inclusion of children’s services in the national care service? I know that there are other potential benefits, but that is not what I am asking about.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
Jude Currie summed it up neatly when she referred to change for change’s sake, and both Jude Currie and Martin Crewe have clearly expressed that there are issues and that change is required but that structural change does not necessarily deliver the change that we require. I will play devil’s advocate, although I agree with everything about that because we have had several evidence sessions that have made it clear that the structure is a diversion from the real challenges that we face. I have heard about leadership and resources from Jude. I would like to have a better understanding of what that actually looks like, what change we require to make those services better, and then what we need to do about it.
Other committee members have, not unreasonably, highlighted the fact that the view of some was, “Just leave us alone and we’ll get on with it and deliver the change.” I do not necessarily agree with that, because everybody accepts that change is required. However, I will play devil’s advocate and challenge you both to say what we need to change and what politicians need to do to help with that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
Does it make no difference to those who receive the service?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Willie Rennie
Yes, but does it make any difference to the people who receive the service?
