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 1268 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Miles Briggs
That is helpful. As members of the panel will know, previous witnesses have told the committee that licensing of short-term lets could lead to a significant reduction in their availability and could cost the Scottish tourism industry tens of millions of pounds annually in lost revenue, even given the disruption that has been caused during the pandemic. How would you respond to those claims about the impact of the proposal on the industry?
I will bring Liam Thompson back in. If anyone else wants to respond, could they put an R in the chat?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
As colleagues have said, we thank your organisations for everything that you did during the pandemic and are doing.
I want to ask a few questions specifically about the funding of third sector interfaces, which have an annual budget of £26 million. How do you see that utilised? Is it sufficient? What would your ask be, given that the budget is being announced today? I will ask Kaja Czuchnicka to start.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
As others have, I thank you for everything that your organisations have done during and coming out of the pandemic.
I have a couple of questions about financial stability and sustainability. We have already heard about the importance of multiyear funding being available. We will, I hope, hear more along those lines in today’s budget announcement. I know of cases of health boards having already tried to move towards multiyear funding for mental health charities and drugs services. Does anyone on the panel have examples of that, or of the difference that multiyear funding makes and the additional capacity that it can provide?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
That is helpful. My final question is about learning from the pandemic. Last Friday, I visited North Edinburgh Arts. We talked about the new partnerships and new relationships that have been built during the pandemic, and about how to sustain them. That very much comes down to their being able to use the facility of multiyear funding.
We all want additional capacity to be built across Scotland. Do you have examples of how that has been achieved during the pandemic? We have heard already that to some extent people just made things happen. There was maybe movement in terms of risk-averse people becoming involved in things. Are there examples of that? Does Suzie Burt have a local example of that? If others want to come in, put an R in the chat.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
Kaja Czuchnicka mentioned community capacity building. I know from going around different organisations in my region that during the pandemic a lot of that capacity building was organic. Previously, organisations would have been more risk averse about such work and people would not have been brought in. The public health emergency response, however, meant that a lot of organisations adapted and built capacity. How do we make sure, for TSIs and other organisations, that that volunteer capacity from those who have wanted to support their communities over the last 20 months, is not lost? What has been learned during the pandemic to make sure that the barriers to volunteering that have previously existed are removed?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
Finally, Suzie Burt, your organisation has established itself during the pandemic. Do you feel that the public health emergency let the third sector in but that it is now being pushed out again, or that barriers are being put in place that were not there before or were taken down during the pandemic? How do we prevent that? A lot of organisations that responded fantastically during the pandemic are now finding that they are not being listened to or that they do not have the same relationship with statutory bodies that they had before. What is your opinion about that? That question is open to anyone else on the panel as well.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
Does anyone else want to come in?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
I want to return to some of the questions that I asked about TSIs. I wonder what the panel’s view is on how they have operated, specifically in relation to the budgeting. Today we have the Scottish Government budget, but in your own areas have you seen TSIs come to the fore in how we have delivered support for the third sector during the pandemic? I will bring in Ian Bruce for a Glasgow perspective again.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Third Sector Recovery
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Miles Briggs
Does anyone else want to come in on that?
One of the points that I want to return to is what Glenn Liddall said earlier about connect four. Looking to the future and the potential reform or improvement of TSIs, how do you think that we can achieve that? As you outlined, how we bring the four sectors together is important and, where there are examples of that, that is important. Could we look towards TSIs potentially helping to achieve that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 December 2021
Miles Briggs
I want to get more information about what the witnesses think will be the benefits of a registration scheme as opposed to a licensing scheme, specifically to areas that have highlighted concerns to the committee about high concentrations of short-term lets. I know that Airbnb gave us some evidence about the blocking of reservation attempts from people under 25 years old looking to book entire homes. A few of the witnesses have talked about the need for data. Is that the key benefit that a registration scheme would provide or could the outcomes that the Government suggests are only achievable through licensing be achieved through a registration scheme? Perhaps Fiona Campbell could start on that.
