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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Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
We do not recognise them. We are more than happy to talk through the numbers with COSLA, but there is no doubt about this: that number is not attached to the bill. If COSLA wants to speak to us about how it arrived at that figure, we will have those conversations, ask it how it did so and listen to what it says. I hope that we will get some co-operation on that front.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
We constantly have conversations around about—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
We have conversations about data and money, but we have had no explanation for that figure of £1.5 billion.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
We have discussions with COSLA on a constant basis, Mr Lumsden.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
We have discussions with COSLA on a constant basis, Mr Lumsden.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
I am happy for folk to write to us about particular matters and we respond to them. That will be in the public domain. I want all channels to be open, but I also want to be open and transparent about all that as we move forward. We will put into the public domain as much as we possibly can. In reality, as we move forward, we will be involving so many folk in all of this that things will be public anyway. We will put out there as soon as we possibly can the co-designs and other things, including the formulation of the business cases and all the other work that we do.
When I visited a Camphill community in Edinburgh the other week, a woman said to me, “You won’t like this, because I’m going to be very challenging.” That is what I want; we need to be challenged if we are to get this right. However, we need to be challenged not only by some of the folk who regularly come before the committee; we also need to give the public the opportunity to challenge us and to shape services as we move forward. That has not happened to the degree that it should have happened in the past.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
That does not surprise me, convener.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
Absolutely.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
No. I am, as always, very happy to continue to engage with the committee, convener. You can be assured that, as our work continues, we will update you as and when.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Kevin Stewart
Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. Thank you for having me along to give evidence and take questions on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill and its financial memorandum.
The National Care Service (Scotland) Bill is an enabling bill that sets out a number of provisions. The national care service, as proposed in the bill, will bring together social work, social care and community health to strengthen health and social care integration for adult services. By the end of this parliamentary session, accountability for adult social work and care support will transfer from local government to the Scottish ministers. The Government is establishing a programme of evidence gathering and research to inform future decisions on children’s services and justice social work and on whether it would be appropriate for them to become part of the national care service, too.
The aim of the NCS is to improve the already high quality and consistency of care across Scotland and to reduce variation to ensure that everyone, no matter where they live in Scotland, is provided with the best possible care. The bill sets out that the functions at a national level will focus on consistency through national oversight, while services will continue to be designed and delivered locally. That is the right approach to support delivery with and for our communities and the people whom they serve. The purpose of the NCS is not to nationalise services.
The principles of any new system will be person centred, with human rights at the very heart of all that we do. That means that the NCS will be delivered in a way that respects, protects and fulfils the human rights of people who access care support and their carers.
The bill sets out a framework for change, but the key details will be developed as part of a co-design approach. Co-design is all about engaging and working with people—people with lived experience of and people who deliver community health and care support. Those are the people who understand the challenges best and are therefore best placed to help drive forward the improvements that we all want. It represents a new approach to drafting the detail of the bill, with the intention of working more collaboratively to reduce the gap between the legal and the policy intent and its delivery, following the difficulties faced in realising the changes identified in previous service reviews.
Integrated health and social care has long been the joint ambition of local and national Government, but the people who access and deliver care have told us that it is not delivering the quality of services that is needed consistently. Combining national oversight with local expertise will ensure that the right balance can be struck to ensure consistent and fair quality of service provision across Scotland, allow for better sharing of good practice and innovation and remove unwarranted duplication of functions in order to make the best use of public funds.
The financial memorandum sets out the estimated costs for establishing and running the national care service and the proposed local care boards. It does not cover any proposed changes to wider policy, such as those set out in the independent review. It includes significant assumptions about required investments in pay and terms and conditions for front-line local government care staff if they transfer to the NCS.
Discussions are on-going with regard to the potential transfer of staff or assets from local authorities. That is a key area for co-design and one that, given its importance, will not be rushed. Work is on-going, and all financial considerations are under constant review as new information becomes available. I want to make it clear that we are not waiting for the NCS to start improving social care; we are already taking steps to improve the outcomes for people who access care and support, and our priority will be to continue to maximise front-line spending.
The Scottish Government’s commitment to fair work and support for fair pay and conditions are long-standing policies that will be embedded in the values of the new national care service. By rewarding and valuing the workforce to deliver the best possible service for the people of Scotland, we will make the sector fit for the future and more attractive to people who come into the profession.
