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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1452 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Does Andy Wood want to come in at all? I see that he does not. Okay. Does Paul O’Kane have any further questions?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
I now hand over to Katy Clark, who will be followed by Paul O’Kane, who is joining us online.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
That brings us to the end of our questions today. I thank the officials for joining us, and we look forward to visiting them in September when we go to Dundee.
That concludes our public business. We will continue in private session to consider the remaining items on the agenda. Thank you, everyone.
11:00 Meeting continued in private until 11:29.Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thank you—that was very helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thanks very much, Paul.
I will bring in Marie McNair, after whom we will come to the end of the session, unless other members have questions.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Okay. We have come to the end of our questions. I thank all our witnesses for taking part in the meeting and sharing their expertise. We will continue with the inquiry in September, as this is our last day before we go into recess—that is why you see lots of smiley faces here today. We will continue with the theme then—in particular, on transport and the challenges that it brings.
I briefly suspend the meeting to allow us to set up for the next item of business. Thank you very much for joining us.
10:01 Meeting suspended.Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
I will bring in James Dornan, then Katy Clark. James is joining us online.
Criminal Justice Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thank you very much. It has been an absolute pleasure working with you all and I will miss you.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Nobody else wants to come in on that issue, so I will pass over to Marie McNair.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Collette Stevenson
Thanks, Miles. I will bring in Paul quickly, and then we will bring the session to an end.