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 810 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
On the back of the questions on the impact of Covid, in response to the omicron variant, the Scottish Government released funding of £9.8 million through the childcare sector omicron impacts fund. I am curious about how that helped and how useful it was. The best person to answer that would be Jonathan Broadbery, followed by Graeme McAlister.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
That is great.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Good morning, everyone. The number of children who are affected is relatively low—it is 35—but we all know that they will have complex multiple needs. I am deliberately not going to list any of the needs that they might have, because those children are few in number and we should protect their right to privacy. Minister, can you reassure me that the regulations will ensure that a child’s additional support needs will be met?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
It is useful to hear that. Matthew, how does ELC provision in Scotland compare with provision in the rest of the United Kingdom?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
That is fair enough. Would any of the other witnesses like to comment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Would Graeme like to comment on that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Early Learning and Childcare: 1,140 Hours
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
We have talked a bit about the benefits of ELC and there has been an acknowledgement of the roll-out. The hours that are being offered have tripled since 2002, I think, which is great. However, in reading the written submissions, I noted that there is a gap and that not all parents are taking up places. What suggestions do you have on how we can increase the take-up, given the expansion? I put that question to Matthew Sweeney first, and then I am interested to hear from Jane Brumpton.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
It is a complex area. I know, from teaching for many years, that it is not just about education. However, when you look at it, the poverty bit sometimes gets missed. Inevitably, if people do not have enough money, a child is not ready to learn, because they are hungry. That makes it even more challenging for teachers as well, so the two things go together. How does the SAC fit into the Scottish Government’s overall approach to tackling child poverty?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Good morning, everyone. It has been a fascinating discussion so far. Cabinet secretary, you acknowledge that we have taken extensive evidence on this subject over the past few months. Parents, young people and teachers have said that, prior to Covid, progress was being made in closing the attainment gap—albeit modest progress; nevertheless, we were moving in the right direction. It is clear that Covid has had an impact on that. Briefly—I know that we do not have a huge amount of time—what are the highlights of the progress that you think has been made in closing the poverty-related attainment gap? Has the Scottish Government considered widening the definitions of measuring that attainment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Kaukab Stewart
What you have said so far has been interesting. I think that we have all more or less accepted that the Scottish Government is in a difficult position. You want to keep the use of the orders to an absolute minimum and keep people as close to home as possible. Therefore, what work have you done with the UK Government? The situation is driven by underprovision in England, so have you lobbied the UK Government and, if so, how did you get on with that?
