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 5737 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is very helpful.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you. It would be good to start measuring and properly understanding how important allotments and community growing spaces are.
Let us move on to another theme, which is on the impact of the 2015 act on allotment demand and provision. We might have covered some of that. I will bring in Miles Briggs.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Paul O’Brien wants to come in. I am mindful of time, so we will move on after that.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that. We will move on to local food growing strategies and put questions mainly to Ian Woolard and Peter Duncan. I am curious to know to what extent you have been involved in development of local food strategies in Edinburgh and Fife.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is a good point. What you are conveying is the importance of that support.
I believe that Paul O’Brien wants to come in. I am mindful of the time, and I think Marie McNair has a couple more questions, so please keep your responses succinct.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is a good point. Last week, Lou Evans talked about having starter plots for people, so that they are not overwhelmed. I think that 250m2 is equivalent to a singles tennis court or something, and that can be quite a lot if you do not have horticultural skills.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is a great idea for repurposing. Bowling greens already have fences or hedges around them, so you do not need to worry about that, and they probably have other facilities.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Exactly.
My next question is for Paul O’Brien or Wayne Priestley from APSE. Do you know whether councils measure the benefits of allotments or other community growing provisions and track the impact in other policy areas?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 7 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Sinclair, what is your experience in Aberdeen?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thanks very much. That is helpful clarity.