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
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I would be happy for someone else to jump in if Gordon cannot answer or if he cannot hear us. I am conscious of time.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Jeremy Balfour
To pick up on some of those themes, I have had a number of meetings with women’s groups, particularly in Edinburgh and the Lothians. There are concerns about women and children being put in temporary accommodation that is just not suitable. There may be single men there, or no proper kitchen facilities. The spaces may be unsafe.
Gordon MacRae, what is Shelter’s view on how Scotland is providing for homeless families? How could we do that differently, particularly for women and children?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I direct my question to either Lorraine McGrath or Gordon MacRae. It is on the lessons that have been learned in the past 18 months, during the pandemic. It is clear that a lot of work was done around homelessness, and we almost saw the end of people being on the streets at all for a period last year.
My question is quite broad. What lessons have we learned from that? Have we—local authorities, the third sector and the Scottish Government—regressed even since then? Have we learned those lessons, and are we now implementing that learning as we go forward? Perhaps Gordon MacRae can start, followed by Lorraine McGrath.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
Yes.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I thank the minster for that answer, and I am grateful for the change. Although it may seem quite technical in its terminology, it will make a very big difference to many people who are applying, so I welcome it.
I put on record my thanks to your team, minister, for all the work that they have done on the regulations. They are technical, but they will be very important for the people applying. Again, I thank your team for that, and thank you for the changes that you have made.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
The question is more about those who are moving on to ADP having to reapply, given that they are already on the system and have been identified as having a need that requires them to receive benefits.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I want to move on to two more technical areas, the first of which relates to the recommendation, which you have not accepted, that people receiving CDP be eligible for short-term assistance if they are moving on to ADP. Why have you said no to that? We have said—and rightly so—that we want to treat people with dignity, fairness and respect but, given that they are already in the system and have already proved that they need the assistance, those receiving CDP should be treated as transferring to ADP instead of as new claimants. Why are we making them go back and reapply? It seems to me that we are not treating people with the respect that we had hoped for.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I have a policy difference with you, minister, in that, for me, the way to resolve the issue would have been to give any child who was on DLA or PIP the winter heating allowance. They would not have to be on the highest rate. I think that I made that point in committee in the previous session of the Parliament.
If we are talking about heating your house, you often do that during the day. It is not often at night, when you are in bed and can have less heating on. The draft regulations still exclude children who are on the lower rate of DLA or not on the higher rate of PIP from getting the payment. Why are you doing that if we are trying to help people who have higher heating costs? They are vulnerable individuals as well. What is the policy intent behind that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
I want to pick up the same point as Pam Duncan-Glancy. Minister, it would be helpful if you could write to us with the timetable of when things are likely to come to the committee.
According to your letter, the regulations were not seen by any stakeholders. Is it correct that there was no consultation with stakeholders? I appreciate that the amendments are quite technical, but I just wanted to check whether that was the situation.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 October 2021
Jeremy Balfour
It is a missed opportunity.
On a technical point, you have removed a requirement to make the payment by 31 December. Why not either put in a later deadline or just meet the deadline of 31 December? Why is there a delay in making that payment?
