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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Are colleagues content that we initiate those actions?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Yes, I am sure that we can do that. We might also write to the minister to request details of the on-going exploratory work on potential changes to the support that is available for social work students. I would like some reflection on the thought process that has underpinned the freezing of the bursary fund since 2012-13, because that must affect the number of students that it is capable of supporting. That is more than a decade. I recognise that there are always pressures on funding—no doubt that will be part of any response—but the fund has been frozen over a long period, so other issues might underpin the situation. I would also be interested to know whether, in response to the issues that the petition raises, the Government’s work will consider the introduction of a bursary for third-year and fourth-year undergrad students on work placements.
We might also write to the Scottish Social Services Council to ask what improvements it made following the 2021-22 review of its postgraduate bursary policies and request an update on its review of practice learning finance. In addition, we might ask when it expects to receive the paper from the higher education institution leads on poverty issues facing students, which ties in with Mr Choudhury’s request in relation to housing issues, as well.
As there are no other suggestions from members, are we content to proceed on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
That brings us to PE1999, lodged by William Hunter Watson, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is fully implemented in Scotland.
We last considered the petition on 22 March, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government to ask when its response to the Scottish mental health law review would be published. The Scottish Government’s response outlines its high-level priorities for inclusion in its reform programme. They include reforming the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 to reflect the requirements of the UNCRPD more clearly.
The Scottish Government will also consult further on options to address deprivation of liberty in circumstances in which people do not have the capacity to make decisions about their care and treatment. The priorities also include supporting decision making, reforming the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, human rights enablement, enhancing the rights and role of carers, reducing coercion across the system and strengthening accountability and scrutiny in the system.
Do members have any comments or suggestions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I thank the petitioner for lodging the petition. I understand the depth of feeling in relation to the issues concerned, but I am afraid that, in this instance and at this time, the committee is not able to advance that.
That brings us to the end of our public session. We will next meet on 24 January 2024.
10:54 Meeting continued in private until 11:21.Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I was struck, because it is something that is very easily said, that the skill sets in some technical areas might be deficient. To paraphrase Mr Campbell, I think that that was the mainlander speaking to the islander. The islander speaking to the mainlander would say, “You lot cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, whereas we are used to doing that on a regular basis.” In other words, the skill sets of people on the islands are very often underestimated. I will not ask you to comment, but that was the conclusion that I drew.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I thank the petitioner, Amy Lee, and welcome the new petition. Does the committee agree to hold the petition open and to seek information from the bodies that we have identified? Once we have those responses, we will consider the position in due course.
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Item 2 is consideration of continued petitions. The first is PE1862, which relates to introducing community representation on boards of public organisations that deliver lifeline services to island communities. The petition has been lodged by Rona MacKay, Angus Campbell and Naomi Bremner on behalf of the Uist economic task force. I am pleased to welcome the petitioners to today’s meeting. Angus has joined us in person, and we are joined online by Rona and Naomi, who will be contributing remotely. Welcome, to you all.
The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce community representation on boards of public organisations that deliver lifeline services to island communities, in keeping with the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. We last considered the petition at our meeting on 14 June. At that point, we received an indication from the petitioners that they would very much like to give evidence in respect of the petition. We agreed to that, so we have the petitioners with us this morning.
The committee has a number of questions that we might wish to explore with you, but before we do that, have you agreed that one of you will be an introductory spokesman on behalf of the three of you?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
The question is, therefore, whether you have anything that you want to say to us in advance, or whether you would be content for us to move to questions first. There will also be an opportunity to sum up at the end, if we do not cover ground that you would like to cover.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
Carry on, please, whoever is going to do it.
Arm I nominating you, then, Angus? Rona and Naomi, are you content for Angus to take the lead here? I see that they are nodding. That is fine—you are content. On you go, Angus.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Jackson Carlaw
I call Naomi Bremner. Naomi, can you hear me? Would you like to speak?
