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 670 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
George Adam
Not to labour the point, but if we did not have the extra challenges to deal with, a lot more work could be done. The UK Government is effectively adding to the challenges that we are all facing when trying to support young people.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
George Adam
You talked about pupils with additional support needs. PEF might help with that in some cases. My granddaughter Daisy is neurodivergent. She has come on great guns in her class because she has been in a class of peers who are similar to her, which has been working great. That has made a big difference to her. These are key areas where we can make a difference, and it is the flexibility and locality of the policy that makes that difference.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
There are projects such as the UWS foundation academy—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
Last week, the commissioner for fair access said that some institutions are hitting the targets, because of demography, but that it is more difficult for others to do so. Is that one of the key issues that you will look at? At the end of the day, we want to ensure that we are doing the best for young people.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
So there should be a key role for those institutions, but it will also be dependent on the demography of their areas.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
I have one final question, which I asked earlier. It is about the sector’s ability to meet the 2026 and 2030 targets using the current SIMD measure. I am perhaps asking you to look into a crystal ball, but could we use the SIMD figures along with a basket of other measures, such as free school meals?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
I will just add that I have been in and out of this committee since I have been a member and I feel that people—in particular, the institutions—are now more proactive with regard to hitting the target. I talk quite a lot about UWS and Glasgow Caledonian hitting the figures, but others seem to be coming to the party and delivering something, which was not the case three or four years ago.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
Good morning. No one will be surprised by my line of questioning, because I have asked the same questions previously. Certain institutions are hitting the Government’s SIMD20 targets, but I am often asked by institutions whether there is flexibility in the funding packages. Is there a role for the SFC to play in how we achieve the targets and how the institutions are funded in the future?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
George Adam
I get that. One thing that is forgotten is that, even in urban Scotland, SIMD20 is not a fantastic measure, because it basically varies over two or three streets. When you look at a map, the SIMD20 area will be bright red—in fact, one of the areas is right outside this building—whereas other streets around it will be better. I understand that there are other ways to measure.
On the data that we currently have, can you tell us a wee bit more about the sector’s ability to meet the 2026 target and the 2030 target using SIMD20 alone? What could we do with some of the other measures?
