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 708 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
Other colleges will look to exploit their assets, and I suspect that some will now be looking at that even harder.
It is difficult to give you detail on this, given how much of it is still under discussion, but I think that everyone has ideas about how we could do things differently. Our approach to such ideas will be to say, “Well, why wouldn’t we do that?” instead of saying, “Why would we?” and to ensure that there is a positive response to any ideas that are brought forward.
As I have said, I have already seen some things that we could be doing differently—the colleges will have their ideas, too—and that conversation is under way. There is an opportunity to address the short-term financial pressures that we face, and then there is the longer-term question of how we get the colleges on a much more sustainable footing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
To be clear, we are considering the flexibilities that we can provide without getting out of classification. The restrictions will, rightfully, still be in place, but I believe that there are things that we can do. The colleges believe that there are things that we can do jointly that will assist them in their day-to-day operations. We ought to be doing those as a matter of urgency. If some things will take a little longer, we will work on those with the colleges.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
I am alive to that and to the geographical challenges that some colleges face. Colleges in Mr Doris’s part of the world do not face the same issues as Borders College, which I visited a few weeks ago, or the University of the Highlands and Islands. We must be alive to the fact that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. We must recognise that certain areas will have a far more challenging environment and take that into account as far as possible.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
My instinct is that trade unions should be represented on boards, and I anticipate that that will happen.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
We are very clear about the fair work expectations, and the colleges and universities know exactly what those are. The Funding Council has an on-going dialogue with both sectors. Are you asking about the guidance in a broad sense?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
Can I give you a specific date? No. Is the date relatively imminent? Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
If that were to be the case, that would be a concern.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
That remains a work in progress, but we will be happy to write to the committee with as much detail as we can provide.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
I think that it is explainable. We have explained why it is necessary, but I entirely recognise the disappointment and concern that have been expressed by both the colleges and the universities over the impact.
The cabinet secretary and I met Colleges Scotland principals and chairs last week. We also met the Colleges Scotland union representatives on the same day, and we met Universities Scotland. We have had some detailed discussions about this, and they have expressed their concerns—I understand those concerns entirely—but, particularly in the context of colleges, we are already attempting to move on from this jointly and to determine how we can support the colleges into a more sustainable position going forward. We are having and will have similar conversations with the universities.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Graeme Dey
I do not think that our language around it has been of that nature. We have just tried to be open and transparent about what has led to this decision.
It is regrettable that we are not in a position to provide the additional money to colleges and universities that we had indicated that we would—that is what we wanted to do—but this is the reality that we are operating in, and we have to deal with the situation as it exists.
