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
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
That was helpful. I have one more question, and then I will leave it to my colleagues to pick up on other areas.
Obviously, your organisation offers advice throughout the process, including with attendance at tribunals. You say that you have 19 advocates but, if we are talking about disability cases going to tribunals, the fact is that there can be up to eight, nine or 10 tribunals meeting at the same time in Scotland from Shetland to Stornoway. Are you confident that, with that number of staff, you will be able to provide a service for somebody on the day of their tribunal?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I was going to make the same point, but perhaps I can answer Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question myself.
I happen to sit on the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which met on Tuesday to discuss the regulations. We, too, had quite a lot of concerns about this being the second additional instrument laid under the initial regulations, so we have written to ask the Scottish Government for an explanation and I have asked for that response to be shared with this committee. As a result, we might not, on this occasion, have to write separately. Once the DPLR Committee receives a response, we can respond to it, if that is helpful, convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
No, I am talking about the First-tier Tribunal.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
With respect, you did not quite answer my question. Are you able to guarantee that, at the present time, you have enough people both in terms of numbers and geographically to cover tribunals? I do not know where your 19 advocates are based, but there could easily be a tribunal in Inverness and one in Galashiels on the same day, as well as some in the central belt. Can you assure the committee that, if someone goes to a First-tier Tribunal within the next few months, you will be able to advocate on their behalf?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
How many people are now working for you in Scotland?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I have one final question. In your arrangement with the Scottish Government, is the money that you receive based on the number of people that you employ? Is there an upper limit to the number of staff that you can employ under your contract with the Scottish Government? I think that I saw that the figure that you had in mind for that was £20 million in two to three years. Does that depend on the number of staff that you employ?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
One area that we have not covered is the relationships that you have with other advocacy services across Scotland. A constituent who went to one of the local authority services came to me here, in Edinburgh, and told me that the service had a waiting list as long as your arm. Are organisations such as the City of Edinburgh Council’s advice shop and other third-sector organisations aware that you are out there? Why do they not refer cases on to you if they cannot take on new cases at the moment?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
When you are writing to the committee with all the other information that you are giving, could you give us a list of who you have been in touch with across Scotland? There might well be gaps and people such as Emma Roddick might know of organisations in the north of Scotland, for example, that are not well known. If you could give us a list, that would be helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you, convener. That was within the four minutes.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Benefits Independent Advocacy
Meeting date: 24 November 2022
Jeremy Balfour
If I am honest, I am surprised about the number of people who are working for you. I just did a quick search on Google and there are eight tribunals sitting today, so one sitting per region would mean that half of your staff would be at tribunals. I am therefore wondering about recruitment. I looked at your website yesterday and you are not recruiting any advocates at the moment, but you are recruiting one policy officer. When will the scale-up happen? What is your timescale for recruitment?
