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 1071 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I know that Mr Dey answered questions on that when he was in front of the committee last week. There is a pilot being undertaken in the north-east of Scotland, and we are working with Universities Scotland on what we can do at the national level. In my experience, it often relates to local agreements; some of the work that was undertaken in the north-east in particular related to a local agreement with the local authority.
The point that David Leng was making pertains to data sharing with the DWP. We have been pursuing that for a number of years, and we are hopeful that we can have that data arrangement in place so that we can better target the funding—that is exactly the point that David was making. I am mindful in particular of the expansion of free school meals and how that will interact with our data at the national level. We need to look at different measurements. We are already doing that through the measurement on children—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
No, I have not received it yet.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Are you asking about the move from the nine authorities to the wider—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
On the first point that you have put to me, I accept that the slight widening of levels 4, 5 and 6 in the most recent data set is a challenge. However, it is important to look at the totality of progress that has been made across the piece, which is the point that I made to Mr Rennie.
Some of the challenge is that the NIF measurement is not in the same place as the stretch aims, so it is not gathering the totality of qualifications. The point that was made to Mr Briggs on the radio last week was that, if we only look at the narrow data set, we will miss all the other qualifications that our young people are achieving. It is, therefore, more important that we move to a truer story about the totality of qualifications in the round. However, I accept that the figures for this year are not where they should be, and we need to reset and focus on progress. Today, you have heard about some of the actions that are being taken to that end.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
If you look in the round at the broader qualifications set, which is not captured by the NIF, you will see a range of other qualifications. I am more than happy to share information on that, because it has been raised with me by School Leaders Scotland and the BOCSH group of headteachers. They pointed to the fact that the Government’s measurements are not telling an accurate story of the totality of our young people’s achievements. It causes me great concern that we are out of sync when gathering data to measure that progress. We cannot have the scenario that you have outlined, because it is not going to help young people with their educational progress.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
As we have heard across the piece from my officials and from David Gregory from Education Scotland—who I see is leaning in—a number of the recommendations in the 2022 report were for local government. I observe that local government is not at the table today—that is within the committee’s gift—but we need local government to be part of the answer, which is why the education assurance board is important. Alison Taylor’s points about variance are also really key. There is variance across the country—it is not a flat picture in relation to the numbers that Ms Duncan-Glancy outlined. Some areas are better than others, even when extrapolating with regard to poverty, which causes me concern, so it is really important that there is targeted support.
Dave Gregory’s team is involved at the national level in the targeted support to authorities, particularly on the measurements that Ms Duncan-Glancy spoke about, so I will bring him in to talk about that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Is the issue the availability of subjects?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
Would you like Mr Gregory to come in on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
We will then have parity across the group.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Jenny Gilruth
I am happy to do so.
