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 527 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Issues have been highlighted to the committee around agencies not being joined up, so patients have to give the same feedback to numerous agencies. Could the patient safety commissioner have a role in joining up agencies? Might that mean their sacrificing a level of independence? I ask that of Dr Williams first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Is there a blame culture? If there is, why, and how do we move on?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Good morning. Dr Hughes, obviously you are quite new to your role. We are hearing in evidence that those who are most at risk find it really difficult to have a voice and to be believed; we hear that particularly from women. What are you doing to engage with those who are most at risk to make sure that their voices are heard?
10:45Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Thank you. You are sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care and appointed by the secretary of state. In the proposed bill for Scotland, there will be a parliamentary commissioner who is independent of Government. What is your view on the pros and cons of each of those approaches?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
My first question is for Richard Phillips. You talked about grown-up conversations and also mentioned the issues that women, in particular, have in raising problems with services and so on. Do you think that a patient safety commissioner will open up avenues for women to be heard and taken seriously?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
I know that we are tight for time so I will ask Bill Wright this question, although I am sure that other members will have views on it as well. Do you think that people with lived experience should play a part in the recruitment process for the commissioner?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
I have really got you started now!
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Good morning, panel. Gillian Mackay asked a really good question, because it segues nicely into my question.
We have been speaking a lot about data and trends—we hear in evidence, no matter which committee meeting it is, that we need to be on top of that. That area is obviously key for the patient safety commissioner.
On Alison Cave’s last point about a plan for working strategically with the new patient safety commissioner, that will be key to making sure that the role works in practice and that we move forward. How are your organisations going to do that strategically? Do you see any barriers there?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Evelyn Tweed
Fraser Morton, I will follow up on a couple of your comments. Thank you for sharing your family’s experience—that was really powerful. I am interested in what you said about the powers that the commissioner would or would not have. If the commissioner had been in place at the time of your case, what would you have been looking for from them? What would have made you feel listened to and supported, and how might the commissioner have taken your case forward to your satisfaction?
