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 1153 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
Good morning, everybody. I am interested in what the public know about social prescribing. There are a few papers out there that say that social prescribing has been around for years, but we have started to have more dialogue about it. We know its value, especially during the initial lockdown in the pandemic, and especially for addressing mental health and social isolation and in relation to befriending.
I know of two local projects in Dumfries and Galloway: the Listening Ear project in Stranraer and a project by the Dumfries and Galloway third sector. What is your understanding of the public’s knowledge of social prescribing as a pathway for treatment, not just for men’s sheds or mental health. What do the public understand about social prescribing?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
My question is kind of about what Alison Leitch and Christiana Melam said. I am interested in the barriers to people to picking up a social prescribing pathway. Alison talked about people seeing a GP first and then having one, two or three further visits in order to be enticed into joining a walking group, visiting a men’s shed or participating in the Listening Ear programme. Under the community empowerment legislation, community asset transfer has enabled communities to get together to create community hubs and centres and to feel empowered, which has helped. What are the barriers to people saying, “Okay, I will do this,” instead of seeing their GP again and again? What is the particular thing that prevents people from progressing?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
I am interested in how we are communicating what services are available. I have asked questions about ALISS in previous evidence sessions. This morning, we heard about an equivalent tool that is used in Edinburgh called the red book, one in Dumfries and Galloway that is called DG locator and a mental health tool in the Borders that is called SPRING. How are we communicating their availability more widely to people who can direct care? How are we helping people to understand that ALISS exists?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
Alison Leitch.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
I have a quick question for Scott Henderson. I know that, during the pandemic, pulmonary rehabilitation was starting to be delivered digitally, and the evidence suggests that such an approach works, especially given that these folk are vulnerable and might not want a face-to-face appointment. Moreover, I know—because I am co-convener of the cross-party group on lung health, which has done a lot of work on the matter—that there is also remote monitoring of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. What are your thoughts on that kind of remote monitoring? Do you think that pulmonary rehabilitation, for instance, could be delivered more widely in that way?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
I have a final, short question for Christiana Melam. How can we raise awareness that link workers exist?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
Did use of ALISS increase during the first lockdown phase of the pandemic? The alliance has shown that use of ALISS increased in 2021, and I was just wondering whether Covid had an impact in that respect.
Moreover, are we tracking who is using it? Is it being used by link workers or others? At last week’s meeting, we were told by Optometry Scotland and Community Pharmacy Scotland that they had not heard of ALISS, but their members also spend a lot of time with patients. After all, an eye examination can take up to half an hour. Who is using the system?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
Yes. It is just a quick question.
In one of my local areas, one of the manager leads of all the GP practices knows about ALISS, so his GP practices know about it; however, they said that it might not be as up to date as it should be. I am aware of some general practitioners who know about ALISS, although Dr Gulhane’s point about not knowing any GPs who access it is probably quite important.
It is about raising awareness, and linking to make it work better. For instance, the DG locator, which is run by the third sector in Dumfries and Galloway, is working on collaborating with the GP practices to direct them more towards ALISS and other services. That would involve asking what we need in order to make ALISS work better, apart from just money.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Emma Harper
My question is just a wee supplementary.
When we talked about library services, Chris Mackie said that we must
“use them or lose them.”
Perth and Kinross Council introduced dog-friendly Fridays in its libraries in 2018, and City of Edinburgh Council introduced dog-friendly Thursdays in October 2019. Those initiatives tackle isolation and loneliness and ensure that folk do not have to tie their dogs up outside the library or leave them in the car. Are you aware of those initiatives? Are we tracking them to see whether dog-friendly days in libraries are a good thing?
