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 1988 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful. To deal with that second point first, my understanding is that the proxy scheme is operating as we thought it was going to operate. However, I note your concern about the actual wording of the voting scheme and I am more than happy to write to seek clarification. You will recall that we tried to frame it in such a way as to give the Presiding Officer the widest possible opportunity to reach the right decision on individual cases without having to seek medical advice or additional information. Therefore, I am more than happy to write to seek clarification.
Before we deal with your first point, in which you hinted that we should seek more information before reaching a decision, I will ask whether any other members want to come in.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
Yes, it is.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful. Thank you.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is helpful. After Collette has contributed, I will come back to Bob.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
You are absolutely right to raise that. I think that that should be part of the evaluation because, come the summer recess, the voting apparatus in the chamber will change—the committee will be cognisant of that. Because the proxy voting pilot already exists, I hope that there will be a way of using the new facilities to capture that, which might alleviate some of the time that is spent at stage 3 in particular.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
I certainly think that framing the question that we want to ask in relation to the new equipment for voting is helpful.
We talked beforehand about unknown unknowns. Until we had the proxy pilot, I do not think that anyone really considered the situation at stage 3. People have a view of something when we talk about it. An iterative pilot approach allows us to say, “Oh, how will it work in this circumstance?” We can capture that and put something in place so that we will, I hope, have an answer on what a more formalised approach would look like towards the end of the pilot.
That is helpful. Do members agree to confirm to the Presiding Officer that we agree to the amendment that she seeks and to seek the additional information that we have requested?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
That concludes the public part of the meeting. We now move into private.
09:57 Meeting continued in private until 11:20.Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Net Zero Scrutiny)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
Agenda item 2 is in respect of correspondence that we have received from the Conveners Group, which relates to strengthening net zero scrutiny arrangements. Do members have any comments?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
Do we agree to support the PO’s request for an amendment to the scheme, and to clarify the understanding with regard to the designation of a proxy, which is a valid question? Do we also agree to instruct the clerks to capture evidence for the evaluation that we, as a committee, must undertake?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Correspondence (Proxy Voting Scheme)
Meeting date: 2 February 2023
Martin Whitfield
I see no issue with doing that. We would be seeking input from the corporate body, as an entity, in our evaluation of proxy voting.
I am aware of a number of strands of correspondence that we have with the corporate body about a number of matters. However, I see no harm in writing to it and, if you are content, Bob, I am happy to do so, just to express where this comes from and what it is about and to ask for its thoughts. The employment and contractual relationships between the corporate body and members of staff do not fall directly within the committee’s remit, but I will reinforce the point that, as a Parliament, we are looking for a developmental and iterative approach to employment that is as widely supportive as possible, in order for us to get our jobs done.
