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 1709 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
Yes, I can.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
It is important to acknowledge that there was wide consultation when the legislation was proposed and was going through Parliament. In my opening remarks, I mentioned the support that has been given by Who Cares? Scotland. There were other supporting voices, including Recruit With Conviction. We had a joint response from the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice and the improving life chances implementation group, who also expressed their support for increasing the age threshold to the highest age that was offered. There is widespread support from stakeholders for the change in regulation.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
We all have a responsibility to ensure that children, young people and vulnerable adults are safeguarded. As I said in my opening remarks, the process of barring someone is robust and the process that someone would have to go through to have that barring lifted will be just as robust.
We want to ensure that we protect children, young people and vulnerable people. The changes in the regulations for people who were placed on the barred list when they were under the age of 25 is about recognising that young people move on from lifestyle choices and behaviours that have been harmful in the past. Denise McKay or Lynne McMinn might want to comment on the legalities around the process.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
The proposed threshold is consistent with that in the rest of the UK, where the ability for individuals to ask for such a change applies up to the age of 25. It is also in line with corporate parenting responsibilities as they apply under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, because we in Scotland acknowledge that parenting does not stop at the age of 18. That is why the age of 25 was chosen.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
I have listened carefully to the debate and am grateful to have had the opportunity to explain the Scottish Government’s position on the SSI.
On James Dornan’s point, I am absolutely clear that the regulations do not automatically lead to individuals being removed from the barred list. They simply amend the circumstances in which an application for removal is competent in that they change the timescales.
As I said in my opening statement, I invite Ms Gallagher not to press Mr Mundell’s motion. However, if it is pressed to a vote, I will ask members to vote in favour of the regulations.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
Yes, I can confirm that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
No, convener, but I think that it gives some context.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
It just gives us some context for the changes and shows that we are not just doing something—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Clare Haughey
We recognise the need for victims of crime to be respected and to feel that they have received appropriate support, regardless of how the person who perpetrated the crime is punished.
It is worth recognising that the change in regulation will affect young people and that there is a robust process to look at whether they should be removed from the barred list. Lynne McMinn has explained the process that people would go through. We can be assured that anyone who is removed from the barred list is suitable to work with groups that they had previously been barred from working with. None of us would want to remove from the lists anyone whom we felt was not suitable for work with children and young people or with vulnerable adults.
