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 856 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
I talked earlier about taking the time to avoid unintended consequences, and that is one that has been flagged to us. We are not as convinced as the universities are that that is a legitimate concern in reality, but we respect the view that they have expressed and we will, of course, take the issue on board, because it would be counterproductive if we were to do something like that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Post-school Education and Skills Reform
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Graeme Dey
Do you mean for apprenticeships?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
Do you mean the machinery within the college, if they are sitting on the board, or the whole machinery?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
In addition, we will ask the college development network to look at the nature of the training that is provided to participants on boards. It is no secret that, when MSPs join the Parliament, there are opportunities for training on questioning techniques. That might be worth exploring to ensure that there is full accountability in board settings. I am happy to consider any other suggestions that the committee might have in the context that I have just outlined.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
Indeed. We are getting under way a piece of work that is a review of the guidance that is issued to college boards. Perhaps Adam Mackie will explain the detail of that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
Our position, as we have discussed in the chamber on other occasions, is that colleges ought to be exhausting all possibilities to avoid compulsory redundancies. We have to recognise that they are stand-alone institutions and that, regrettably, circumstances might lead to such a situation, but we are encouraging them. For the most part, college principals and boards are very much committed to trying to avoid compulsory redundancies.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
You are referring to a negotiating committee.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
I agree with you, and there is no doubt that there is scope for doing this far better than is currently the situation. However, we need to get agreement on what those changes might look like. I have had a number of conversations with all sides on it, and I do not think that we are in the space where there would be agreement right now. However, it is incumbent on me, as minister, to try to drive that forward, because we cannae go on as we have been for years. There have been far too many personality clashes involved in it. There are question marks about the structures and how they work, so I think that we need to review it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Correction
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
Graeme Dey has identified an error in his contribution and provided the following correction.
At col 5, paragraph 6—
Original text—
If a regional board comes to the conclusion that there is something of concern to it, it has the opportunity to escalate that to the Scottish Qualifications Authority
Corrected text—
If a regional board comes to the conclusion that there is something of concern to it, it has the opportunity to escalate that to the Scottish Funding Council
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Graeme Dey
I am delighted to be here today to discuss the Colleges of Further Education and Regional Strategic Bodies (Membership of Boards) (Scotland) Order 2023, which makes changes to the constitution of the boards of management of all regional and incorporated assigned colleges, regional college boards and the board of management of New College Lanarkshire. For ease, I will, from now on, refer to the changes as affecting “college boards”.
The order makes amendments to existing legislation to ensure that there are two trade union nominee members—one from the teaching staff and one from the support staff—on college boards. Consequential amendments to the board sizes are also made to ensure that there remains a balance of independent board members. I hope that, among other things, that will go some way to improving industrial relations in the sector by giving greater voice to trade union views in decision making and by helping to improve confidence, particularly among the workforce, in decisions that are made by college boards.
I am grateful to the committee for its work in scrutinising the Colleges of Further Education and Regional Strategic Bodies (Membership of Boards) (Scotland) Order 2023, and for accommodating my diary today in order that I can also attend a similarly important event elsewhere this morning. I also want to put on record my thanks to Ross Greer, the good governance steering group and the trade unions, who have all provided input at various times to help develop the order and prepare the sector for its implementation.
It is no secret that industrial relations in the college sector are far from ideal, and that has been the case for some time. Concerns have been raised through the committee and through my engagement with trade unions about a range of workforce issues, including college governance. I have been clear throughout that engagement that the workforce issues are a matter for colleges to consider, but it is my expectation that there will be meaningful engagement and collaboration with trade unions and workers on such matters. I should add that existing processes are pursued when issues arise.
The order will make improvements to college governance by adding trade union nominees to college boards, and I am optimistic that it will improve confidence in college board decision making by giving trade unions a more direct route to bring workforce issues to boards. That aligns with the Scottish Government’s wider fair work agenda, which, at its centre, is about workers having an effective voice. Having trade union nominees on boards will further the input of trade unions in decision making.
I welcome the committee’s continued focus on college governance and industrial relations and its scrutiny of that legislation. The Government has always been clear that, although industrial relations are matters for trade unions and college employers, it will work alongside both to encourage and improve relations and ensure good governance in the sector. I look forward to taking any questions that the committee may have.
