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 757 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
Sure. I am sorry—that was such a stark example that I am a bit speechless.
Let us turn to movement restriction conditions, perhaps carrying on the theme that we have been discussing. I acknowledge your organisations’ responses to our report about the process perhaps not being trauma informed, which looked at physical and psychological harm and our concerns around that. With that in mind, could you talk about what further clarity is required around the test for MRCs?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
When we took evidence at stage 1, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland commented on MRCs, as did Who Cares? Scotland. The CYPCS said that
“intensive support has fallen away in many cases”,
and Who Cares? Scotland told us that support was “patchy”.
Bearing in mind what you have just said about the difficulty in quantifying what is required, will the resources that are allocated in the updated document ensure that that is not the case, and that intensive support will be provided to everyone who has an MRC?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
The acknowledgement that there is a balance to be struck is crucial, is it not?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
I am being upstaged by Willie Rennie when he is not even asking questions. [Laughter.] I have a final question on that issue. You have spoken about the benefits of protecting teacher numbers. What assessment do you make of the risks of seeking to control teacher numbers? I am thinking about local variation in accountability.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
On that specific point, we have heard examples of areas other than teachers where the education budget can be spent. I am not questioning the value of teachers at all; I am just reflecting on the conversation that we have had about attendance and the suggestion that attendance officers, for example, might be helpful to the vulnerable children and families whom we are trying to help. Indeed, what about speech and language therapists? That is another issue that has come to the fore as a result of the pandemic.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
I have a further question about fairness. You might have one local authority with a falling pupil roll that has protected its teacher numbers and another with a rising roll that is having to maintain them. I know that we have the highest pupil teacher ratio, and that is an important measure, but—I am sure that committee members will not mind my using this example—in my local authority area, the pupil roll is falling and the authority is having to maintain teacher numbers. It is, I guess, a difficult issue for people to get their heads around.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, cabinet secretary and panel. It is nice to have you with us. As you will see, the committee has been exploring the policy of maintaining and increasing teacher numbers. Last week’s panel gave us some views on that, and members will have heard views from their local authorities, too, but I would like to hear your reflections on two points.
First, this is obviously an input measure. Are such measures the best way of looking at outcomes for children and families? Secondly, I would like to talk about the issue of fairness. What about those local authorities that protected their education budget and have falling pupil rolls? It would be helpful to hear your views on the issue of inputs and outcomes first.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
Maybe we can move on to reflections from ADES. Does Carrie Lindsay or Douglas Hutchison want to come in?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
Thank you and good morning.
I would like to talk about teaching and other staffing costs. Kirsty Flanagan mentioned protecting teacher numbers. We have spoken before in the committee about the situation in which pupil rolls are falling in some local authority areas, yet they are expected to maintain teacher numbers. My local authority has also lost attainment challenge funding, which adds additional pressure. Can you speak a little bit about the opportunity costs of having to maintain teacher numbers and what that looks like for children and young people in schools where that is the case?
09:30Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
I have a couple of questions about children’s services. The first is about the Promise. I am interested in the witnesses’ reflections on the practicalities of delivering the local government elements of the Promise in the current financial context. While you are thinking, I point out that a live issue for the committee is the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, which obviously has implications for local government, so perhaps you can speak to that a little.
10:15