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 732 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, panel. One of the areas that was identified for priority focus was early deaths of care-experienced children and young people. I would like to hear from you on that.
I was quite surprised to read that information about the circumstances of early deaths is not collected. I understand that there is now a national hub for reviewing and learning from early deaths of our children and young people in care.
Perhaps we could hear about that work from Kevin Mitchell initially.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Thank you for that answer. That is exactly the point, is it not? The system has to understand individuals’ lives.
I do not know whether Mike Burns has anything further to add.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Thank you. I will move on.
Physical restraint was another focus of the oversight board’s first report. The report states that, although there is a commitment to culture change across the residential sector, progress is mixed. What assessment has been made of the impact of the new reporting procedures in relation to restraint?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
I wish to ask about siblings. It is not unique to this area that we have some pretty strong legislation and policy, but there is a gap in what people experience, or an implementation gap. We heard this morning about practical and cultural issues that might be preventing siblings from being placed together, so I would be interested to hear the reflections of panel members on that, with a view to understanding what needs to change to ensure that we can keep siblings together. Earlier this morning, a figure of 25 per cent was quoted for the number of siblings being separated, which will be quite shocking to committee members.
I would like to hear from Louise Hunter specifically about engagement with the minister. What discussions have you had following the brothers and sisters project work? I would be interested in hearing how the Government has responded to that.
That was a jumble of questions, but if you are happy to go with that, it would be helpful to hear your responses.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Just then, you spoke about producing a leaflet to describe to a child or a young person what their rights are. I cannot imagine many situations where that is enough, but I am thinking in particular of when a young person is going through a time of crisis in the children’s hearings system. Most adults would be hard-pressed to pick up a leaflet.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Does Nicola Killean wish to comment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
I will go back to Louise Hunter. We have spoken about accountability, and I suppose that the ultimate accountability for legislation lies with the Scottish ministers. On this topic, what interaction have you or Who Cares? Scotland had with ministers?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, minister. This is a welcome move, and it is important for the fair work principles that you set out. Will there be any further opportunities to strengthen board governance? That is always important, but, particularly while we are operating in times of financial constraint, it is crucial that we have excellent governance on our college boards.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
It feels very uncomfortable to be talking about numbers when we are talking about actual children and young people.
I suppose that the committee would want to be reassured that, where there is learning to be had, it is possible to do that to ensure that we are doing the best for children and young people in our care. I do not know whether other panel members have anything further to add on that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Women’s Health Champion
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Ruth Maguire
I get a little bit concerned when we talk about women in deprived areas being less knowledgeable. In my experience as an MSP who represents some areas that are very economically deprived, the issue is not women’s lack of knowledge or confidence. It is simply more challenging for someone to interact with a system if they are an employee rather than self-employed or if they are in a low-income job, or—as you said, Professor Glasier—if they have children to look after and different demands on their time. I just want to reflect—as you did in your answer, to be fair—that it would be quite a dangerous and lazy assumption for us to make in talking about women’s health.
