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
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
In Glasgow, a person who registers a birth is assisted in making a claim for a best start grant. Do you know of any other such examples of good practice elsewhere? Of course, you might not have that information to hand.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
I was just interested in hearing about other areas where there might be that kind of good practice.
The strategy aspires to reaching a position where people are automatically referred to Social Security Scotland when things happen to them that could make them eligible for benefits. How achievable is that aspiration, and how can we embed it in our approach to the public sector and other services that people access?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
As the minister will know, the introduction of the child disability payment has been piloted in three council areas—Dundee, Perth and Kinross and the Western Isles. What lessons can be learned from the pilot and what number of claims are we talking about collectively from those areas? What source of supporting evidence will be used to assess those claims? I am aware that you might not have that information to hand and it is okay if you do not, but will you forward it on to me when you get it?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
Thank you, minister. That is reassuring.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
I have no further questions.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
I want to highlight a good example from Glasgow, where people registering births are assisted in making best start grant claims. Are there any other examples of good practice elsewhere?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
Good morning, minister; it is good to see you.
Unfortunately, access to many of the Scottish benefits is dependent on people’s being in receipt of reserved benefits. How has the UK Government responded to requests for a more unified and strategic approach to maximising take-up? If the response was disappointing, how do you intend to follow up on that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Benefit Take-up Strategy
Meeting date: 11 November 2021
Marie McNair
Thank you. Minister, I look forward to seeing the additional information, if you can pass it on.
Under the old system, people were deterred from applying for the carers allowance by the fact that the underlying entitlement rules meant that for some it offered no financial gain. What are we doing to get the message out that that has changed and that a gain will come from the carers allowance supplement?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Marie McNair
I thank the witnesses for their submissions, which I found really helpful. In your evidence, you emphasise the importance of involving people with lived experience of homelessness. That seems to be a good way, in practice, of achieving what we want. Did the pandemic hinder progress in any way? How do we maintain the momentum on that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (Session 6 Priorities)
Meeting date: 4 November 2021
Marie McNair
The Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021, which will come into force in December 2022, will help to prevent women’s homelessness by barring the perpetrator of domestic abuse from the home and giving landlords the ability to transfer tenancies to the survivor. How impactful will that be in tackling homelessness among women? Are other improvements needed to better assist women who are at risk of being made homeless?
