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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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Graeme Dey
You are right to say that John Blackwood of the Scottish Association of Landlords was quite positive about the protocol. However, he suggested that the SAL would be keen to have dialogue on refinement of the protocol, on some of the detail and on how it is presented. Would you be open to that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
Graeme Dey
With regard to your point about people being unsure, perhaps the very existence of the protocol focuses minds.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Graeme Dey
With regard to resolving neighbourhood disputes and providing adequate tenancy support where it is needed, is the current reporting mechanism—the self-assessment, if you like—robust enough to ensure that what is being recorded is accurate?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Graeme Dey
I want to explore how some of the legislation is being implemented both in practice and in spirit. The social housing charter refers to standards and outcomes that homeless people can expect from landlords with regard to access to help and advice, quality of accommodation and continuing support to help those people to access and keep a home. At the risk of being parochial, I want to highlight a case in my constituency. Individuals who were given notice by private landlords approached the local authority, as the go-to for finding accommodation, only to be told to sit tight for the notice period, after which the eviction process would be started. The council appeared reluctant to take away some of the burden and stress being felt by those individuals at that early stage by offering advice or, indeed, engaging with the private sector landlord. Where does such an approach fit—if it fits at all—in the charter? Even if it is okay, is it in the spirit of how the charter should be applied?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Graeme Dey
I am sorry—I have not explained this clearly enough. What I am getting at is the conduct of the local authority when it is approached. It is simply telling tenants to sit tight for the notice period, after which the eviction process will start. That is very unsettling for tenants who are seeking a social housing gift—for want of a better word. Is it appropriate for the local authority simply to kick the can down the road like that, or should it be engaging earlier? Is that approach covered in the charter in any way?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Graeme Dey
Minister, you made the point earlier that what we are here to discuss is the charter, but we have strayed into other areas, although that has been all to the good.
I have a small suggestion. You have commented on how you would expect social landlords to raise awareness of the charter. Is there a requirement on social landlords to make tenants aware of the existence of the charter and the regulator? That might lead to an improvement in the situation. Social landlords that are doing everything that the charter requires will do that, but if those that are not were also aware that their tenants understood what the charter required and about the existence of the regulator, that might drive behaviour. Is that worth considering?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Graeme Dey
How would you respond, minister, to the concerns of Living Rent that the current process of self-assessment against the charter’s indicators is not suited to delivering the charter’s outcomes and that a more robust and accountable regulatory approach might be needed?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Graeme Dey
You said that you “strongly expect” that the additional sums that will be generated by the increase in fees will go into planning resources, but does that not highlight a potential problem here? If, with the best of intentions, we move to a system of full cost recovery, what guarantee do we have that the income that will be generated from that will be directed to the purpose to which you hope it will be directed, so that NPF4 can be delivered? I recognise that you are working on a collaborative basis with COSLA but, from what I can see—unless I am wrong—there is nothing that says that, if a system of full cost recovery comes in, the income that is generated could not be directed to other council activities, which would leave the planning system underresourced, despite your best efforts.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Graeme Dey
Do you accept that the use of words such as “should” can create ambiguity that might be unhelpful with regard to what you are trying to achieve and planners want to support?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Planning Framework 4
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Graeme Dey
Minister, I think the convener’s point is that the committee might draw some conclusions about where NPF4 has got to. In the timetable that you are working to, is there any scope for the Government to write to the committee giving a summary of the changes that have been made to NPF4, and, if the committee so wanted, would it be possible for us to have a session with you? You are trying to achieve parliamentary approval and have talked about co-operation rather than conflict. If the committee were to conclude that substantial changes had been taken on board, such an approach might facilitate what you are looking for. Would the timetable allow an opportunity for what the convener is seeking?
