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 931 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
Does anyone else want to come in?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
Thank you, Jackie. That would be very helpful.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
How should that be reformed to remove the barriers and cliff edges? Do you have any examples?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
Jackie Galbraith, you have already touched on universal credit. Is there anything else that you would like to expand on?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
Good morning, panellists. The Scottish Government has a commitment to an all-age guarantee of support for those who are most disadvantaged in the labour market, focused on priority groups. One Parent Families Scotland has made a similar suggestion in its submission. What discussions on the issue has One Parent Families Scotland had with the Scottish Government?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
Conditionality in universal credit is very controversial. The UK Government suggests that it helps people to get into work and increase their earnings. Is there any evidence to suggest that the sanctions regime is having that effect? What alternatives should the UK Government and the Scottish Government consider in order to support people into employment? I put that question to Marion Davis.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
That is absolutely horrific. Does anyone else want to come in?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
As no one else wants to come in, I will hand back to the convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 15 June 2023
Marie McNair
SWAP’s submission says that unexpected crises are a reason for students not being successful. How can we improve crisis support for parent students? For example, would better links to money advice or the Scottish welfare fund be helpful?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Child Poverty and Parental Employment Inquiry
Meeting date: 8 June 2023
Marie McNair
Thanks for that, Kirsty.
What about other policy areas—for example, health and social care? Are reforms needed there that would help parents who are dealing with additional support needs?
