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 2121 contributions
|
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
One of our key consultations in recent times has been for the islands bond, on which there was extensive engagement and consultation with island communities. During that consultation, feelings about the bond were made quite clear, but what also came through were some really helpful and positive suggestions for trying to tackle depopulation or retain populations in different island communities. That was a really positive part of the process, and we have used those ideas and suggestions to develop practical policy tests to see whether they might be effective.
As for an example of proposals that were not taken on board, I would have to turn to officials for that information. I do not know what examples there are in that respect, but I can say that, on the back of the consultation that I mentioned, we definitely had some good and positive suggestions that we have listened to and tried to implement.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
We will need to see how the project develops, but you are right that CDOs have been playing a critical role so far. I return to a point that Francesco Sindico made earlier. What has been brilliant about the project has been young people being able to return to their communities on the islands after studying on the mainland. They are embedded in those communities, so they are in the best position to try to build community engagement and involvement with the plan.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
I mentioned the project in the Western Isles. Other projects were undertaken where we know that childcare can be an issue—we are taking forward a childcare pilot project on Mull—and I can write to the committee with more information on them.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Members of the committee will, no doubt, be aware that we have undertaken a consultation in relation to the HPMA process and that we will analyse its results. We talked earlier about island communities impact assessments, and a partial one was undertaken for that process. We have to ensure that we are taking into account those other impacts, and we will do so through the processes that we have specified, as well as undertaking our own engagements throughout.
I was in Shetland last week to meet with people in the industries concerned to hear their views on that process and its potential impacts, and to listen to people’s concerns, which is essentially what we have to do. We also have to ensure that we are listening through the consultation exercise and that we give the full analysis of the responses that we have received before we set out the next steps.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
The committee members will be well aware of the concerns. We have had a number of debates in relation to that subject recently—Beatrice Wishart had a members’ business debate in which she outlined her constituents’ concerns about the HPMA process. We are listening to those concerns because we have to consider the national islands plan’s objectives around the importance of populations as well as all the other strategic objectives that I have set out.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
We aim for there not to be conflicting policies in the portfolio. Obviously, with agriculture, fisheries, land reform and forestry sitting in the one portfolio—you will no doubt be aware of the various pieces of legislation that will be introduced relating to those areas—we have to ensure that those policies are aligned and working for our island communities.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
We have had the consultation; we need to go through the process of analysis before setting out our next steps. You can see from the commitments that we have set out in the national islands plan, which cover 13 strategic objectives, that work is on-going.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
I should just say that Cameron engaged extensively in that work and undertook the consultation.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
One thing that has been great throughout the process has been having the islands team. In my opening remarks, I thanked them for the work that they do, because having an islands team, with the officials that we have, has been critical in ensuring that we have islands representation across all parts of Government. We talked a bit about that and about the extensive engagement in relation to the island communities impact assessments.
The team is also heavily involved in the population work that we are undertaking. The ministerial population task force draws in other parts of Government, so, in that sense, the work is extensive.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
National Islands Plan Annual Report 2022
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
The officials in the islands team have been involved in the process for longer than I have, so they will probably be able to give a better indication of how the process has been. Having that team is critical. You can see from the objectives that we have set out in the report that they cover every part of Government, which, of course, includes aspects for which I am not responsible. I see my role as one of making sure that our island communities’ voices and concerns are represented in each area when other policy decisions are being taken across Government.
I will hand over to Francesco Sindico.
10:30