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 1472 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Michael Marra
It is a real positive that that demand is out there, and I appreciate your bringing that to our attention.
I also have questions to the Scottish Funding Council. Karen Watt, after the budget last week, Universities Scotland expressed real concern that the cost of graduate apprenticeships is to be absorbed within its core budget. Is that the case?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Michael Marra
My questions are probably slightly more substantive. I may hang off until my turn, if that works.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
My final question relates to your own institution. I recall speaking to a lecturer who expressed frustration that the lack of young people taking higher computing had meant that, in some of your core courses, it could no longer be used as a compulsory subject. Consequently, a lot of teaching in first year was in areas that could perhaps have enthused people in the way you spoke about. Do you see other institutions having that problem in common with you?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
That is a very useful comment about the broader practical issues. We have focused on a very useful conversation about the 23 per cent decline in the number of computing teachers and we recognise that something has to be done in that area. Your comments on the broader infrastructure, including the human infrastructure of support staff, are particularly useful.
I am conscious of the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s role in the area. There is a lot of characterisation of computing as a boring subject. One headteacher said to me recently that higher computing had been positioned as being quite a technical, boring, inaccessible subject, rather than having been given a sense of inspiration and possibility. Would you recognise and agree with that characterisation?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
That is helpful. Thanks, convener.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
It is more broadly about the system and the skills. We will park the gender issue just now, as we have covered it quite comprehensively so far.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
Turning to our colleague from the Scottish Building Federation, I am interested in issues pertaining to net zero and the training not just of young people—on whom we have focused in this discussion—but of older, more experienced tradespeople and other people bringing skills to the labour market. Do you think that enough is being done, both by the industry and by the associated agencies, to support you to upskill and refresh the workforce, so that we can meet the challenges of higher building standards, different approaches and new technologies? Are we building capacity and reacting enough, as institutions, to help you to do that work?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
I have been speaking to representatives of colleges over the past couple of weeks, and they are telling me that they are struggling to retain students, due to the opportunities that emerge for well-paid jobs in your industry. When it comes to completing courses and ensuring that students have the qualifications to hand that allow them to work through a longer-term career, there is a drive on your side of the fence to get people into work—and that is a great thing—but are you working with your members to ensure that new recruits can complete those courses, get the credits and get the credentials that can provide a longer career?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Skills: Alignment with Business Needs
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
The point about the appropriate representation of business and employers in those groups should be included in that, as well. I am sure that we will touch on that later in our discussion of the evidence. That was particularly powerful evidence.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 8 December 2021
Michael Marra
The “robust” process has been mentioned a few times. Can you say a bit more about what that entails, so that we can have some confidence in the process? You mentioned evidence gathering.
