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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Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2024”
Meeting date: 28 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Reflecting on the answers that you have just given us, do you accept that there is a flat-cash settlement that represents a 17 per cent real-terms cut in funding for Scotland’s colleges?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Section 22 Report: “Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. Your report opens with some very harrowing figures, not just in terms of the absolute numbers of deaths and of the lives that are affected by them, but also in showing how bad the picture in Scotland remains in relative terms. It draws on figures from August 2024, so they are very up to date.
Even in paragraph 2 of the introduction, you say that the drug-induced death rate in Scotland is
“27.7 per 100,000 population”
and that
“The next highest rate was Ireland with a rate of 9.7”
per 100,000 people. That is almost three times the incidence of drug-induced deaths in Scotland compared with Ireland, and it puts Scotland way out in a wholly worse place than anywhere else in the rest of the United Kingdom, as well as in relation to the European examples that you draw on. You talk about the death rate from drug poisoning being twice as high in Scotland as it is anywhere else in the UK.
Those figures do not seem to be getting better, even over time. What is your reading of the reasons that lie behind the record that Scotland has, compared with other parts of the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe?
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
The next item on this morning’s agenda is primarily about Audit Scotland’s report on Scotland’s alcohol and drug services.
As well as the Auditor General, we are joined by Cornilius Chikwama, who is audit director, and Ray Buist, who is audit manager, at Audit Scotland, both of whom worked on this report.
Auditor General, we have quite a number of questions to put to you this morning. However, before we get to those, I invite you to make a short opening statement on the alcohol and drug services report.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. As you say, we will return for a detailed evidence session on that report in a fortnight.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 29th meeting in 2024 of the Public Audit Committee. James Dornan MSP is attending the meeting remotely.
The first agenda item is a decision on whether to take agenda items 3 and 4, on further consideration of alcohol and drug services, in private. Are we agreed to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
I am sure that we will.
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
I am reading the report again and looking at the section titled “Alcohol and drug harm disproportionately affects people already facing disadvantage”. That is a recurring theme, is it not? You cite in the report that people from Scotland’s most deprived areas are
“seven times more likely to be admitted to hospital for an alcohol-related condition”
and that
“almost half of all patients with a drug-related hospital stay lived in the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland.”
It is clear that there is a link between deprivation, poverty and inequality and alcohol and drug dependency, as well as the seriousness of that dependency and where that leads and has led.
However, is there not multiple deprivation in parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Why is the situation so acutely bad in Scotland?
09:15Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Before bringing in Colin Beattie, I will ask you about that final point. You made a series of recommendations in your 2022 report. Two years later, in this report, you say:
“The Scottish Government has made progress in implementing our previous recommendations, but delivery of some key national plans has been slow.”
The word “slow” crops up a few times in the current report. Has the Scottish Government given you a reason as to why it has been tardy in addressing some of the recommendations in your previous report?
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
It is certainly a public health crisis, is it not?
Colin Beattie has some questions to put to you about data and the information that is, or is not, available.
Public Audit Committee
“Alcohol and Drug Services”
Meeting date: 21 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Earlier, you mentioned changing patterns of consumption and so on. One of the things that stood out for me in the report was where you talk about the influence of cocaine in deaths. You say that, in 2008, around six per cent of drug misuse deaths included a cocaine element. That has now gone up to 41 per cent. What does that tell us?
