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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 1466 contributions
|
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
I will shift the focus a bit. We have talked quite a lot about the process and the mechanics of the duty and about issues around how the duty is used to identify and deal with inequality and discrimination. The third need in the public sector equality duty, which I think is often overlooked or ignored, is the need to foster good relations. I am interested in the views from each of you on how that need is understood and interpreted. Do you have examples of how that need is used as a tool or mechanism for good practice for fostering good relations? I will start with Alyia Zaheed.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
That is really helpful. You spoke about the need to take a more coherent view, which chimes with the earlier panel’s remarks about harmonising things. Do you think that the Scottish Government’s proposed changes go far enough? Is there enough in them to deliver the kind of transformation that you would like to see, or give you what you need in order to deliver the outcomes that you want?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
That is helpful, and quite a strong steer for us in considering how we support the changes, so thank you for that.
Nicky—I will ask you the same initial question. In what ways is the PSED not strong enough or falling down in its operation, practice and understanding, given that we are seeing increasing inequalities, both between and within protected characteristics groups in Scotland?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
I want to shift focus and look at the three needs covered in the general duty. The third need—fostering good relations—is, I think, often ignored, seen as less important or is just talked about less. It is certainly our understanding that there is a lot of focus on equality and discrimination, but the fostering of good relations can get missed out.
Perhaps I can start with you, John. How can we talk about fostering good relations in a way that makes sense to people? What work does PHS do on the third need, not only to develop good relations, but to support others in doing the same?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thanks.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
That is helpful. In some ways, it is good to hear you say that you do not see the issue as being sidelined or forgotten. That might vary across the country, but that is helpful. I ask Andrew Groundwater the same question.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
That is fine—thanks, Andrew.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
It is interesting that there are explicit requirements in relation to gender, such as the publication of gender pay gap reports. Do you think that that has helped to nudge progress on gender? Would similar equivalent metrics that make the public sector do certain things for certain protected characteristics help in other areas in which there are widening inequalities?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
We see widening inequality and we see equality regressing in so many different areas. As Andrew Groundwater said, if a lot of the focus has been on compliance and process, how do we make the shift if we still need standardisation or comparability of data collection? If we are still not doing that, after however many years the policy has been in place, how are we using the equality duty to make things better for people on the ground? We might have a good process, but how do you see it translating to positive outcomes?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Public Sector Equality Duty
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Maggie Chapman
Thanks for that. You were clear in what you said about being able to share good practice and in what you said about departmental silos. There are organisational silos and institutional silos, and you have the opportunity to blur some of those boundaries. That could be very effective.
Do the proposed reforms of PSED go far enough? Would you like to see them go further or do more—or give you more opportunity to do more—to ensure that we achieve the outcomes that we want to achieve through PSED?
