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 1351 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
Okay. I might bring Lucy in to talk about that. As I said, the figures that I have as of 2 December 2024 are 3,057 on the criminal justice VNS—
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
I do not have that information, and I do not know whether Lucy Smith has it, but we are happy to write to the committee on that point.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
It is accessible. People can get in touch with the Scottish Prison Service, but we have acknowledged that we need reform. That is why we asked for an independent review to look at how we can improve things.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
We are looking at the report’s recommendations on how we can improve things. One aspect is data sharing, and amendments will be lodged on that area to make it possible, moving forward, to set up the victim contact team.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
Yes, absolutely. We are committed to taking this forward, so there will have to be an allocation in the budget.
10:45Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
We engage regularly with victim support organisations, which will be an integral part of this journey as we move forward to establish the victim contact team.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
We would have those discussions—and that was a hypothetical question. I would hope that we would all be moving forward together and that I would be working with the victim support organisations.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
Yes. I would envisage that, as well as having the victim contact team, the family would also be signposted to organisations that might be able to give support in future if that is needed.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
At the moment, the VNS is formed of three schemes.
The victims of offenders who have been sentenced to more than 18 months of imprisonment have the right to receive information about the release of the offender, and some of those victims have the right to make recommendations when decisions are being made about release. That is referred to as the criminal justice VNS. As of 2 December, there are 3,057 victims on that VNS.
The second scheme involves victims of patients in the forensic mental health system who are subject to a compulsion order and restriction order. Those victims are similarly entitled to rights of information and the making of recommendations. That scheme is referred to as the CORO VNS. As of 2 December, 34 victims are registered on that.
Victims of offenders who are sentenced to fewer than 18 months are entitled, on request, to more limited information about the offender’s release. That is known as the victim information scheme—the VIS. Currently, 58 people are registered on that scheme.
A lot of organisations are involved in the VNS. It is complex, so I will give you some background: the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service plays a role at the start of the process by distributing registration packs to victims; the Scottish Prison Service sends written information to victims; the Parole Board for Scotland and the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland facilitate victim representations; and the Scottish Government sends written information to victims of mentally disordered offenders and also provides release information to the registered victims of offenders detained in secure accommodation. In addition, victim support organisations provide support and assistance to victims registered on the VNS and to victims who can request information under the VIS. Some victim support organisations also now have proxy rights to information.
I hope that that gives you some background in relation to all the organisations that are involved and with which the victim contact team will need to engage.
To go back to your original question, as we move to stage 2, we are not only considering underpinning the victim contact team. We are looking at including the CORO VNS in the standards of service, as set out in recommendation 2 of the review. We are looking at applying discretion to the list of relatives eligible to register for the scheme, as set out in recommendation 11, with that discretion applying across the three schemes. We are looking at children over the age of 12 being able to authorise an adult to receive information on their behalf, which would be done on a case-by-case basis, according to the child’s capacity and choice, as set out in recommendation 14, and that would also apply to all three schemes. We are looking at taking a power to expand the information available under the victim information scheme, as set out in recommendation 15. The power to amend the VIS would bring that scheme more generally into line with what is happening with the VNS. We are also looking at data sharing and a duty to co-operate in order to establish the victim contact team, which covers recommendations 17, 20 and 21 and would apply across all schemes.
Criminal Justice Committee
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Siobhian Brown
We do not have a timescale for that at the moment, because we are still engaging with all the organisations that are involved. It is a work in progress.
Would you like me to set out what the recommendations on the victim contact team were and what it should ultimately look like, even though I do not have a timescale at the moment?
