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 1198 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
Finally, if you could change the budget in one way to make it better, what would you do? How would you move money around to make the biggest difference for the people you work with?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
No, convener. I think that everything has now been covered by other members.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
That is helpful.
My second question returns to questions asked by other members. I think that we all recognise that there are now a lot more unpaid carers, particularly female unpaid carers. I appreciate that this sounds contradictory, but do you have any idea of the number of unpaid carers out there who we do not know about? How could the Scottish Government or the committee find out that information? Obviously, if we want people to get the benefits that they are due, we need to consider how we identify those individuals. Are we talking about hundreds or thousands of people? Have you any concept of the scale that we are talking about?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
Can I follow up on that answer before asking my final question, convener?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 23 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
My second question is about the longer term. The Scottish Government has announced a review of the criteria for people getting the adult disability payment. That review may or may not be implemented in the current parliamentary session, depending on time and what the independent commission is asked for. How much notice do you require to be able to forecast whether there will be a differential? For example, if the mobility criteria distance was increased from 20m to 50m, more people would be able to get the benefit. Would you be able to forecast the effect? What information would you require from the Department for Work and Pensions and Social Security Scotland in order to do that work?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Adult Disability Payment
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I want to move on to the issue of terminal illness, and perhaps the biggest change in the primary legislation. Sadly, a number of children die as a result of terminal illness. My understanding is that the Government was going to do a deep dive to see how the system worked. Does anyone know how that has worked in practice? Has it made a difference for the children for whom it was introduced? Are there indications that the medical profession—particularly consultants, general practitioners and nurses—are aware of the changes and are signposting patients towards them?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Adult Disability Payment
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
With the first panel, we discussed the issue of people who are presently on DLA and who will come off it when they transfer across. That may affect not only mobility; with regard to those with variable conditions, it might mean that they lose the benefit. Do you know from talking to your members how many people that would affect? Is it a concern? I do not know whether Bill Scott, Keith Park or others have any information on that.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Adult Disability Payment
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
That is a helpful comment. It is a disappointing situation. Five years ago, when Jeane Freeman was in charge and this work started, there was going to be a very different system. I think that the Government has lost its way, particularly on the 20m rule and those with variable conditions.
However, if we presume that the regulations will be passed by the Scottish National Party and Green Government with a review taking place in 2022-23, will it be possible for any recommendations that are made—for example, to change 20m to 50m—to be implemented in the current session of Parliament, or will it realistically be another five or six years before we see any change? Given your experience of how long things take, do you believe that we could do it in a four-year period, or is that overoptimistic?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Adult Disability Payment
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I have three questions to ask. The first one is for Richard Gass or Judith Paterson, but feel free to jump in if you wish. It goes back to the issue of case law. We have had quite a lot of debate about this over the past number of years because, clearly, a lot of case law has built up over the past 15 or 20 years. Is it your understanding that the new agency and the new tribunals will be following that case law, or is the situation still unclear?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Adult Disability Payment
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Jeremy Balfour
Is it possible that we could transfer safely and make changes at the same time? If that is not possible, will it be possible to make any changes that will come out of the independent review in the current session of Parliament, or are we realistically looking to the next session? I will start with Bill Scott on that.
