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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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
I appreciate Mr Balfour’s point in lodging the amendment, but it is not required.
The Scottish Commission on Social Security plays an important role in providing detailed scrutiny of draft social security regulations on which the advice of experts in social security is required. However, any decision to increase the amount of an existing benefit must be made in the context of the wider financial and non-financial support that is provided to the people who are entitled to the benefit and within the wider fiscal context and limits of our budget. Those decisions are best suited to the Parliament.
As the changes that can be made under any regulations that are laid under the new power that we seek to introduce are limited to increasing the level of the supplement for a specific period or periods, we do not consider that further scrutiny by the Scottish Commission on Social Security is necessary or appropriate. The application of the affirmative procedure in section 2 will allow members adequate opportunity to consider any regulations in draft form. I note that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee’s stage 1 report on the bill supported that position.
Considering all those points, I do not support the amendment and urge Mr Balfour not to press it. If he does, I urge the committee not to support it.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
As I said, we have recently published evaluations on the carers allowance supplement and the young carer grant, and we will continue to do that as appropriate and in due course. However, the obligations that the amendments would place on us would take resources away from our development of Scottish carers assistance and the on-going work to consider improvements to the young carer grant, which is where our focus should be.
To respond directly to Miles Briggs, I note that, if the amendments are not agreed to, there is no intention to bring them back at stage 3, but I can commit to continuing to explore options outside the bill. I have talked about what we have done in terms of evaluation in recent times.
I am grateful to Maggie Chapman for the discussions that I have had with her in recent days, and for not moving amendment 4. As Jeremy Balfour has moved it, I will say that, although I am grateful for the debate that we have had, I urge members to reject all the amendments on reporting requirements, because they would detract from our work on developing the new Scottish carers assistance.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
I have already mentioned the 100 co-location venues, full accessibility and a presence in all health boards, and the combination of utilising those venues, being present in those health boards and the collaboration that will arise means that support will be available to people, no matter their geographical location in Scotland.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
On your last question, the answer is yes. I will bring in Colin Armstrong to speak about the procurement process. The procurement process was undertaken twice—once in 2019-20, when an award was not made because of the pandemic, and then again more recently. Throughout the process, Scottish Government officials engaged with current providers to give them all the awareness and information that they would need if they wanted to, for example, make a collective bid. However, that was not undertaken.
I will let Colin Armstrong come in on that.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
Thanks, Colin. I will say a bit more. Consortium bids were welcome, but were not made. Two organisations with a presence in Scotland—Citizens Advice Scotland and Money Matters—made applications but, through the regulated procurement process and following an assessment under the appropriate law and criteria, VoiceAbility was assessed to have made the strongest bid and therefore was awarded the contract, as is appropriate.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
We cannot speak on behalf of the City of Edinburgh Council when it comes to the choices that it will make—
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
That is absolutely the focus of the amending regulations. If the committee agrees to recommend approval of the instrument, the amended advocacy service standards will ensure that the quality of advocacy is appropriate and regulated, and that its independence is absolutely assured. That has been the case with the interim service, too.
When we considered the Social Security (Scotland) Bill in 2018, there was a determination and commitment to ensure that independent advocacy was available, and we are now delivering that. The advocacy will not be provided directly by anyone who works for the Scottish ministers, including staff of Social Security Scotland; it will be provided by people working for another organisation, VoiceAbility. The advocacy workers will support social security advocacy rights and needs, and they will work for and on behalf of the individual in a way that is as free from conflicts of interest as possible. That is all set out in the service standards.
It is important to emphasise that, under the terms of the award, VoiceAbility will deliver only advocacy and not advice. It is specifically contracted to deliver the advocacy commitments in the 2018 act, and to be there for clients when they need it.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
The point about the difference between advocacy and advice is well made. Advocacy involves the provision of support that helps someone to express their rights, views and wishes and what they want to achieve, whereas advice involves imparting guidance or recommendations to someone with regard to a future action or decision. The focus of VoiceAbility’s service will be on advocacy when it comes to social security benefits that are delivered by Social Security Scotland.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
I hope that today’s discussion has been helpful and that it is clear that the new service, along with the regulations under consideration, is another step towards delivering a social security system that works for people and which has fairness, dignity and respect at its heart.
I move,
That the Social Justice and Social Security Committee recommends that the Social Security (Advocacy Service Standards) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2021 [draft] be approved.
Motion agreed to.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 September 2021
Ben Macpherson
There is more that we need to consider and do for carers, as we look to bring in Scottish carers assistance, but we also have to work within the fixed budget of the Scottish Parliament. It is important to consider the fact that, in order to deliver that, we are working within a budget that was set in the spring.
