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
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
I presume that there is a mixed picture across the country. There will be areas such as yours where there has been progress but, on the basis of the findings of the commissioner’s report, I presume that, overall, there is an issue, or an issue remains.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
Can we anticipate a quickening of the pace in the years to come?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
My questions are directed to Professor Scott in the first instance. In your annual report, which you published this week, you note:
“Universities Scotland and Colleges Scotland established a National Articulation Forum which produced its final report in 2020. Yet very limited progress has been made.”
Will you expand on that and tell us why you think that that has, disappointingly, been the case? Perhaps you could highlight areas in which you think that progress could be made to the greatest benefit.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
I think that it would be reasonable to bring in Audrey Cumberford, given her lived experience of what we are discussing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
It is quite disappointing that, all these years into the process, we are still in this situation.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Graeme Dey
I apologise if this is a layman’s question, but I want to get an understanding of this. What is the collective reserves position for Scotland’s colleges set against what it would have been before regionalisation?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Graeme Dey
In the interests of time, my opening question can be answered by a nod or shake of the head, or a simple yes or no. A few moments ago, Willie Rennie advanced a theory—a criterion, if you like—that two-year-olds should attract an enhanced rate because of the ratios that would be required to supervise them. Do we accept that that is the case—yes or no?
I am seeing nodding heads, so we accept that that is the case. In that case, Matthew Sweeney, why are so many councils not paying an enhanced rate for two-year-olds, set against what is available for three-year-olds and above?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I do not accept that at all. A number of councils are doing that. Angus Council, my own local authority, has the fourth highest rate of provision for two-year-olds in the whole of the country, and it is paying considerably more for them than for children aged three and over. Some councils are clearly walking the walk.
That takes me to the process for rate setting. Forgive me for asking what might be a layman’s question. What is the process? What are councils meant to take account of? Should they look at issues such as the cost of rents in an area or economies of scale? What do they take account of in setting rates and how is the private sector involved in that process? Do they have discussions? Is there input? Is there an appeals procedure if the rates being offered are deemed to be completely unsatisfactory?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I am trying to make the point that the reason why we find ourselves in the situation is that there is a lack of suitable accommodation in England and Wales. If action is taken now that leads to a further reduction in capacity in England, despite the best of intentions here, there might well be an increase in applications to house such children. If we are to assist in that, I want to be absolutely sure that we have the capacity to do so.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Graeme Dey
As other colleagues have done, minister, I thank you for your very helpful letter in advance of the meeting. The regulations, whatever else they have done, have shone a light on the whole issue, in particular given the commissioner’s response to them.
I will touch on one point. There is a report in The Times this morning on the problems down south. It asserts that there are “scores of inexperienced ... owners” opening children’s homes, with the inference that that is clearly not good for vulnerable children who have been taken into care for very serious reasons.
How do we, in Scotland, ensure that settings in which those children, or any children, are placed are of a type that we would deem appropriate? Are there any plans to strengthen safeguards further in the forthcoming primary legislation?
