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 732 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
Yes. I was just going to say, first, that I know that my colleagues will want to talk specifically about information sharing. Your answers have covered how conditions might be implemented and monitored effectively. Fiona, please do come in on that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
That is helpful. I will stick with you for a second. At stage 1, Social Work Scotland gave us a lot of rich evidence about the impact on children who are involved in the justice system who are causing harm. We asked Social Work Scotland for its view on safety planning for victims, but at that point you had no information from your membership. Are you able to give us your reflections on that now?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
I have a question about movement restriction conditions. First, I want to hear your reflections on the updated costings for the intensive support that accompanies MRCs.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, panel, and thank you for being with us. The committee wants to turn more attention to the impact on victims. We highlighted that in our stage 1 report, and the Scottish Government’s response stated that it was working with partners to explore what more could be done. Hopefully we will hear a bit about that.
First, I have some questions for Kate Wallace from Victim Support Scotland about reporting restrictions. On 5 September, you wrote to the committee on behalf of the mother of a victim of a very serious crime, asking that, as MSPs, we exercise caution when referring to the case and not use the child’s name. For the record, can you tell the committee what the impact is when a victim is mentioned in the press and coverage of the case is repeated? Once we have heard about that, perhaps we can discuss what we can do about it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
That would be helpful.
Do any other witnesses have a view on the part of the bill that deals with restrictions on reporting? Should that align with the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
Sure. I am sorry—that was such a stark example that I am a bit speechless.
Let us turn to movement restriction conditions, perhaps carrying on the theme that we have been discussing. I acknowledge your organisations’ responses to our report about the process perhaps not being trauma informed, which looked at physical and psychological harm and our concerns around that. With that in mind, could you talk about what further clarity is required around the test for MRCs?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
When we took evidence at stage 1, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland commented on MRCs, as did Who Cares? Scotland. The CYPCS said that
“intensive support has fallen away in many cases”,
and Who Cares? Scotland told us that support was “patchy”.
Bearing in mind what you have just said about the difficulty in quantifying what is required, will the resources that are allocated in the updated document ensure that that is not the case, and that intensive support will be provided to everyone who has an MRC?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Ruth Maguire
The acknowledgement that there is a balance to be struck is crucial, is it not?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, cabinet secretary and panel. It is nice to have you with us. As you will see, the committee has been exploring the policy of maintaining and increasing teacher numbers. Last week’s panel gave us some views on that, and members will have heard views from their local authorities, too, but I would like to hear your reflections on two points.
First, this is obviously an input measure. Are such measures the best way of looking at outcomes for children and families? Secondly, I would like to talk about the issue of fairness. What about those local authorities that protected their education budget and have falling pupil rolls? It would be helpful to hear your views on the issue of inputs and outcomes first.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny and the Scottish Attainment Challenge
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Ruth Maguire
On that specific point, we have heard examples of areas other than teachers where the education budget can be spent. I am not questioning the value of teachers at all; I am just reflecting on the conversation that we have had about attendance and the suggestion that attendance officers, for example, might be helpful to the vulnerable children and families whom we are trying to help. Indeed, what about speech and language therapists? That is another issue that has come to the fore as a result of the pandemic.
