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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1148 contributions
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
So, is the winter preparedness plan not deliverable?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Evaluation of the plan is essential in order to reflect on what works and what we should take forward in the bill.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Just a final—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Emma Harper
Okay. Thanks very much.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
I will be quick because a lot of information has been covered already. In our previous evidence session, the witnesses talked a lot about whole-system approaches to the budget. We know that we need to tackle poverty and health inequalities and the impact of housing on those—there are loads of umbrellas that are needed to support the improvement of the health of the people of Scotland. I am interested in public health and preventative approaches. I am interested in the ability to have a good healthy diet, for example. I am interested in the work of Henry Dimbleby and Chris van Tulleken, as well as Professor Pekka Puska’s work to improve diet to reduce cardiovascular disease. What work is being done to learn from other researchers who are not even in Scotland, to see how we can budget better for public health measures?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published an interesting report on short-term, medium-term and long-term planning. It focuses on the fact that the Scottish Government’s health budget depends on Barnett consequentials, so it is determined by the UK Government. If we do not know what is coming from the UK Government, does that pose challenges in determining what needs to be incorporated into preventative health planning or acute planning?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
Good morning. I am interested in the co-design process. I know that regional events on that took place over the summer, at which you focused on rural as well as urban issues. For example, in my area such events were held in Stranraer and Hawick. I would be interested to hear a little more information about the co-design process and whether it was different from other processes that had taken place previously.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary question. Since minimum unit pricing was introduced, we have also had a pandemic. We have heard that, during the pandemic and during lockdown, there were changes in people’s consumption of alcohol. Some folk who drank a lot drank even more, and some folk who drank less drank even less. What are your thoughts on how the pandemic has affected alcohol consumption? Has that skewed any of the minimum unit pricing information that has been brought forward?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
I have a final quick question. You talk about empowering people. Over the past few years, I have heard people say that they want to work with people to support their care, not to do stuff to them. Are we making progress on the language in relation to working with people rather than doing stuff to them?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Emma Harper
My question is not a criticism; I am just raising the fact that there is comprehensive information out there. There are easy-read documents for people, and the videos that you referred to are another great way for folk to get information—they can watch the videos on their phones or whatever. My point is that a lot of work has been done over the summer and it would be good for people to be able to see that.