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 1311 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
Thank you. I really appreciate your comments.
Dr Simpson, do you want to share anything before I hand back to the convener?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
Thank you for that.
I thank you for your indulgence, convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
I thank the minister for that information.
What information do you have on how many local authorities are delivering the minimum rate so far?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
I have no further questions, convener.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
I should declare that I was previously a councillor, from 2003 to 2022.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
Good morning, minister and officials. I am aware of the work on kinship care that has been carried out in both of the health and social care partnerships in my constituency, and I know that they have started to issue back payments. I am interested to know when local authorities will receive the £16 million that was announced by the Scottish Government. Are you confident that the money will be sufficient?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
Dr Rushton, do you want to express a view?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
In terms of the bill that has been proposed by Mark Griffin. Do you not think that that should wait until the Government has set out its intentions?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Employment Injuries Advisory Council Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Marie McNair
No, that is fine. You have raised concerns already about the timing of legislation and getting it passed.
To go back to the timescale, industrial injuries disablement benefit has been largely unreformed since its creation many years ago. You mentioned the situation in the 1920s and up to 1948, and how complex that benefit is. Do you feel that that is due to the lack of research or the lack of political interest in bringing the benefit into a new, real-world setting? You said yourself that women have been excluded from applying. Can I get your views on that too?
Meeting of the Parliament
Cashback for Communities
Meeting date: 8 November 2023
Marie McNair
Over the past 15 years, the cashback for communities programme has played a crucial role in the lives of countless young people and communities across Scotland. I welcome the fact that, over the next three years, phase 6 of the programme is expected to reach around 34,000 young people. In East Dunbartonshire, which part of my constituency is in, more than £1 million has been spent on more than 40,000 activities from 2008 until now. In West Dunbartonshire, approximately £2.5 million has been spent on 44,000 activities.
One of the organisations that received funding was Includem, which is a Scottish charity that works with young people and families. In 2020, it was granted cashback funding for a three-year project to provide an early intervention service in West Dunbartonshire for children and young people who were felt to be at risk of offending. A recent report by Matter of Focus discussed its findings after three years. Some of the figures that were reported by the young people speak for themselves. The report said that 91 per cent of children and young people moving on from the project reported increased confidence, 94 per cent said that they felt more resilient and 89 per cent felt that they had maintained or improved their attendance in school.
That is valuable in helping us to understand the impact, but to add to that, here is a rather powerful statement from a police representative from year 1 of the programme. They stated:
“The majority of young people who have been referred are no longer coming to my attention for negative things. That is where the pattern of behaviour that they were displaying previously, in my professional experience, would have suggested the risk of escalation.”
As an MSP covering part of West Dunbartonshire, I know that fire setting continues to be an on-going issue.
The issue was brought to the attention of Includem, and to tackle it the charity set up meetings between young people, their Includem worker and the fire service. The young people gained a new understanding of the potential seriousness of fire raising, the consequences of their actions and what that could mean for their future. The workers observed that those involved in the work appeared to stop fire setting, which is hugely significant and very welcome.
The impact of cashback extends well beyond the individuals that it supports; it extends to their families, too. Evidence from the project in West Dunbartonshire has helped parents and carers to be in a better place for supporting children in their care. However, it does not stop there; it also extends to the wider community. One of the most compelling aspects of cashback is that it allows communities to get involved in the change that they want to see. Includem’s fire-setting project was a key example of responding to something that local residents were concerned about. For the families of young people who have been involved in fire raising, that will contribute to reduced pressure and worry, and, overall, it contributes to a safer community in West Dunbartonshire. That is just one case study among the vast amount of positive work that is being done, but it illustrates the success of the programme.
The Scottish Government’s cashback programme shows the power of effective governance, and it understands the importance of investing in our vulnerable young people. It underlines the Scottish Government's commitment to support young people to live full, healthy lives and to address some of the underlying causes of crime. Young people are the future of our country, so cashback is not only an investment in our local community but an investment in our future.
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