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 982 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
David Torrance
How can we improve online triage systems, so that not only patients but health practitioners are confident in using them?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
David Torrance
How can the workings between patients and receptionists be improved? All four receptionists in a practice in my constituency have resigned because of a lack of support from GPs and the level of abuse from the public; the practice will have no receptionists by the end of the month. How can we support receptionists and how can we improve the patients’ interactions with them?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
David Torrance
Thank you, convener. To what extent are primary health care practitioners other than GPs able to promote prevention and self-management? Is a greater focus needed on prevention? Perhaps we can hear from Clare Morrison first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
David Torrance
Good morning to the panel members. Does the primary care system enable a holistic and preventive approach to keeping people well?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
David Torrance
To what extent do the public recognise the increasingly complex role of GP receptionists?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
I can say, as somebody who does a lot of litter picks, that plastic bottles are probably the most common thing that we pick up from trees and bushes around Kirkcaldy and the surrounding areas. They are really bad for the environment, so I am extremely glad that you have brought your petition to the committee.
I am so impressed by what you have done, especially given your age. Usually, boys your age are looking to get money from tooth fairies and things like that, rather than bringing petitions to the Parliament, so well done—you have done really well.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
Your submission says that you are looking for protection for historic native woodlands larger than 0.5 hectares. Is there a lack of the data and information that would help you to achieve that? How would that help the Scottish Government or any other authority to take care of woods?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
You have said that the 1981 act needs to be updated. The new national planning framework is out for consultation. Have you been able to see that? Have you fed into that process as a way of changing regulation?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
I thank the 12 local authorities that responded to our call for evidence. However, out of 32 local authorities, that is a pretty poor response; all the local authorities have licensing boards in place.
I support the call for an evidence session before the committee. I would also like to write to the Scottish Government to highlight the 20 per cent decrease in the number of taxi drivers to see what the Government would be able to do. Will it monitor the situation and see what it can do to encourage people back into the taxi business?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
David Torrance
The Scottish Government highlights in its submission that it would lose £552 million to invest in public services. It says that it does not support what the petition calls for, so I do not think that there is anywhere for the committee to take the matter. I am happy to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders.
