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 3251 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
That is good to hear.
Finally, I want to ask you about community and third sector partnerships. I suppose that the third sector would say that the deal that you are striking with the Scottish Government needs to be replicated with councils in developing new partnerships. In response to the inquiry, the Government has announced additional funding for climate hubs in order to scale up the ambition of what our third sector can achieve in communities and make a huge difference. What is your approach? Is there a commitment from local authorities to work with those climate hubs? Where do you see the third sector in that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
I have a thought on the back of that. Has there been any discussion about how the CIS works with the Scottish Government’s national public energy agency? The energy agency is being set up right now, and there is an opportunity to align on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
I am interested in the work on local heat and energy efficiency strategies. Are councils actively considering becoming energy generators, with municipally owned energy companies, or are the strategies all about co-ordinating local opportunities?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
That is useful.
I will move on to city region deals. A number of those deals were worked out seven or eight years ago, but the world is quite different now. The climate emergency is getting more severe, and the targets that are in place for 2030 are very stretching—you alluded to that in your opening remarks, Councillor Macgregor. Are those regional deals still fit for purpose? Do they and individual projects need to be looked at again? For example, Sheriffhall might not meet a carbon test now, or maybe it would. Who is looking at that? Who is doing that analysis and assessment?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
There is a lot of good practice. We heard about quite a lot of that during the inquiry.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
The Secretary of State for Scotland is actively seeking to sabotage not only the DRS, with all its benefits for litter reduction, recycling and climate emissions, but the whole basis of devolution, including the right of this Parliament, and of the Welsh Senedd, to deliver DRS schemes across the UK that include glass—[Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
Will the minister say how she has sought to correct Mr Jack’s misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the way that devolution works across these islands?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 18 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
You are referring to pop-up shops, pop-up facilities and creative opportunities.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 18 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
The question that comes out of that is what culture can do for planning and place making. The final question that I have been pondering concerns the local place plan process. From the way that you describe it, it seems that, at its heart, it is quite co-creative. In so, where are creative and cultural organisations in that? We look to planners and planning departments—which are underfunded, perhaps—to deliver the process, but is there a role for creative organisations in supporting planning charrettes and accessing and enabling the voices of young people and other disadvantaged groups in the process? Are there examples of a creative sector or creative groups in communities working with planners to assist in the local place plan process and help to create the vision? That feels like quite an exciting opportunity.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Culture in Communities
Meeting date: 18 May 2023
Mark Ruskell
I am interested to hear how you think the dial has shifted since Covid and what some of the challenges and opportunities are. Looking around some of the communities that are close to me, I notice that high streets look very different now and shop spaces are opening up. During Covid, there was more discussion about the value of green space and we started to think about how streets could look different and how civic spaces could be opened up. I guess that there were some opportunities there, but cultural organisations are also facing into some headwinds. It would be interesting to get your views on how the post-Covid world looks a little bit different and the implications of that.
