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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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Session 6 Priorities (Drugs Policy)
Meeting date: 14 September 2021
Angela Constance
We know that there is often great fear among women with regard to reaching out for help and disclosing the level of their drug use, especially when they have children. That is one of the reasons—there are many—why we are investing in whole-family approaches and family-inclusive practice.
The committee might recall that I announced in my statement to Parliament on 3 August substantial investment in an organisation called Phoenix Futures, which is to establish a national residential family service for the whole of Scotland. The announcement outlined that, subject to various approvals and consultation within communities, the facility would be able to accommodate up to 20 families, including mums and dads who have children aged from birth to 11. As well as thinking about services at the national level, we need to think about them at the regional level. That is one example of a step forward. There will be other work and announcements, in due course.
We have channelled funding through alcohol and drug partnerships, in which there is a specific allocation of £3.5 million for local ADPs to invest in whole-family approaches.
We need to support families as collective units, but we also need, within families, to support individuals in their own right. We will publish a framework on what family-inclusive practice should look and feel like on the ground. We are making progress in that area, and I will keep the committee informed.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Session 6 Priorities (Drugs Policy)
Meeting date: 14 September 2021
Angela Constance
I have a focus on governance and implementation. I answered the same question from Mr O’Kane. As well as the practical support provided through MIST to get the 10 standards embedded by next April, its work covers at least a three-year period for quality improvement and quality assurance. I said to Mr O’Kane that the last thing we want to do is to put all that additional investment, time, resource and support to embed the standards and then sit back and relax. We cannot sit back and relax; we need to keep on this.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Session 6 Priorities (Drugs Policy)
Meeting date: 14 September 2021
Angela Constance
We know from that information that 13 per cent of beds that were accessed in that timeframe came from alcohol and drug partnership funding, and that there were also publicly funded places from housing benefit and social security. People would be accessing private and charitable funding as well.
Regarding the first quarter of this calendar year, you might recall that we published information on how the emergency funding was used. In the period from January to March, we quickly initiated £5 million out the door, and £3 million of that went to ADPs. Some of that money was for a separate improvement fund that people could apply for. There was also a grass-roots fund. We published information on how ADPs allocated that money, so that is available. We are currently gathering further information from ADPs and, again, we will make that available.
As for what we know about current capacity, earlier this year we published information on how, overall, the 20 facilities in Scotland were operating at about two-thirds capacity, so we know that there is capacity there to be utilised. I have given a commitment to return to Parliament with our milestones over the next five years. That is about how to improve access—and, as Ms Wells rightly points out, it is also about the extent to which we will improve capacity over the next five years. We will come to Parliament with much more detail on that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Session 6 Priorities (Drugs Policy)
Meeting date: 14 September 2021
Angela Constance
Social isolation is also a public health issue. Committee members might be aware that a few years back the Government introduced a tackling isolation and loneliness strategy, and there is a range of investments and funds around that.
With regard to tackling drug-related deaths, I have to point to the lived experience and recovery community, because much of what they do is based on their own, real-life experience and the expertise that they bring to the community.
Mobilising the lived-experience community can help to reach people that services might struggle to reach. The relationship aspect of support is crucially important. The peer navigator system that Medics Against Violence have been strong proponents of in our prisons and hospitals is also really important. Peer navigators with lived experience from organisations such as Aid & Abet make contact with people when they come into police custody. All of that is about making connections and building relationships with people to support and help them in their onward journey, and it goes along with referring them to services.
