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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 3464 contributions
|
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Early Learning and Childcare: Progress on delivery of the 1,140 hours expansion”
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Richard Leonard
But it was a stated Scottish Government policy, wasn’t it? I do not know whether that is the point that Mr Simpson is going to make. I understand what you are saying about the availability of data sharing and so on, but if the Scottish Government announces a policy and Parliament legislates for it but we are unable to deliver, it becomes a rather hollow promise, doesn’t it? You do not need to answer that question. I will bring in Graham Simpson.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Early Learning and Childcare: Progress on delivery of the 1,140 hours expansion”
Meeting date: 5 October 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much, indeed. That has been a useful session for us. I thank the director general, Neil Rennick, for coming along and leading on this evidence and Eleanor Passmore for your input. Matthew Sweeney and Joanna Anderson from COSLA, thank you very much, indeed, for answering our questions and taking part in this morning’s discussion.
10:33 Meeting continued in private until 11:06.Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
I am afraid that I am going to bring us back to the institutional architecture and all that. One of the things that I take from the report is the question of where the IJBs are in all of this. There is a lot of attention on the health boards’ outcomes and the local authorities’ outcomes, but the IJBs are supposed to straddle the work of those bodies and to pull it together and integrate it. Will you say a word or two about the conclusions that you drew from the work that you did on the role of the IJBs?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
I think that IJBs were described in Parliament just last week as being quite a mixed bag. I do not know whether you have discerned this from your auditing work, but is it the case that, in some areas, the IJBs are accountable and are working well, whereas in others they are not? You do not need to name any, but do you get the sense that there are different performances in different parts of the country?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
We are very tight for time. Graham Simpson, you can have the final question, if it is very quick.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
Thanks.
Christine Lester, will the Accounts Commission monitor the Verity house agreement and its outcomes?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
Perhaps Leigh Johnston would like to come in.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
Before I bring in Graham Simpson, I will take you back to the emergency budget review, in order to fully understand what you are saying. Auditor General, you said that the exercise was about identifying underspends and rationing the public finances according to that. However, when Eva Thomas-Tudo spoke about that, she said—as I interpret it—that that exercise has knocked off track the targeted support for GPs by 2026, for example. Was that going to be underspent, and that is the reason why the £38 million cut was made, or has the £38 million cut resulted in your assessment that that will not be on track?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you, Auditor General, for the evidence that you have led this morning, along with Leigh Johnston, Eva Thomas-Tudor, and Christine Lester from the Accounts Commission. I thank you all very much for giving us your time and your thoughts and reflections, and for giving us some very useful evidence that we will now consider in deciding what next steps we want to take on this hugely important area.
May I say, Auditor General, that I think that this is one of the strongest reports that you have produced, certainly in my time as the convener of the Public Audit Committee. It is very clearly driven by the evidence and has reached some pretty stark conclusions that I think all of us, as members of the Scottish Parliament, will need to reflect on. Thank you very much indeed.
10:34 Meeting continued in private until 11:25.