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 819 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
Forgive me for staying with the example of North Ayrshire, but its figures are the ones that I know, although I think that my line of inquiry about the situation there will be relevant to other areas of Scotland. North Ayrshire was one of the areas that lost Scottish attainment challenge funding. We have had that debate, and I absolutely recognise that there is poverty everywhere and that that funding needs to be provided across Scotland. However, the local authority employed an additional 17 teachers with that funding. Now that its funding has been reduced, it needs to find that money from elsewhere.
I recognise what the cabinet secretary has said about teacher numbers, which are important. However, when we talk about the poverty-related attainment gap, for children and families in my constituency, good services such as libraries and leisure centres are also crucial for their opportunities. What assessment has the Scottish Government made in relation to those things?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s answer. You mentioned exceptional circumstances. We all acknowledge that there is no evidence that reducing teacher numbers would assist in reducing the poverty-related attainment gap.
We might have a case in North Ayrshire of a surplus of teachers. Perhaps the Scottish Government could look to the specific circumstances of the area—not to consider additional funding, but to ensure that we are taking a fair and consistent approach that benefits the children and schools there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
The bill asks for a minister to be assigned specific responsibility for this cohort of our citizens. I do not know whether joint responsibility is the right term, but both of you have responsibility for disabled children and young people. Why are people calling for a specific minister? If that minister was you, what would your priority be? What is the first thing that needs to be done for those children and young people?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning. I would like to ask about fairness and consistency when it comes to local authorities managing localised needs and changing needs, such as falling rolls. I will give the example of my local area: North Ayrshire is experiencing a decline in population and, with that, a decline in the pupil roll. That is reflected in a reduction in the grant-aided expenditure that the council receives. Is it the case that councils with an increasing pupil roll will receive additional funding through grant-aided expenditure, but that, rather than having to increase the number of teachers, they need maintain them only at 2022 levels?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
Those insights were really helpful, and your reflections on parents having to become professionals to take all of this on certainly resonate with our own experience of speaking to them.
I know that lots of colleagues want to come in, convener, so I will leave it there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
Okay. You spoke about the transition out of college. Do you want to say a bit more about that and about how colleges support young people?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
That would be really interesting to know.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
What is happening now in that regard?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
I am sorry to interrupt. You used the word “competing”. Are the policy drivers competing, or is it more the case that everything is a bit cluttered?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 February 2023
Ruth Maguire
I totally understand what you are saying about the complexity of policy and guidance and that perhaps adding to them might not be helpful. What is it about the complexity of policy specifically that gets in the way of there being better outcomes for disabled children and young people?
