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 1231 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I have not seen the paper, Mr Ross, so I am not going to say yes or no.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I have not spoken to them directly on the issue, but I am more than happy to do so.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
—on which I cannot necessarily have a direct impact, if such a decision has been taken.
As the Government minister, I am here to direct policy and—of course—to try to convey the ethos of the Promise and ensure that local authorities are signed up to it. We have heard clearly today that there is a real drive from local authorities, from the third sector and from a number of organisations in delivering the Promise. As I said, I have been very clear about my thinking around 15-minute timetables and how they should be used as a transition to go back into school, but I am more than happy to have further discussions on these matters.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
My view is that it should only be a last resort, and that other measures should be taken to support that child or find out what is happening in that child’s life that is causing the reason that they would be excluded. As I said, I believe that it should be as a last resort.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
As I said, we are working on progress towards supporting children and young people in their school day. We are experiencing a number of issues in our schools, as the member will be aware, and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has just launched the relationships and behaviour action plan. We are taking a number of actions to try to reduce exclusions. Yes, if the Promise says that we are to end exclusions, that will have to be the case if we are to deliver on the Promise by 2030—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
That is something else that we consulted on, and we are still analysing the responses. It was clear that people wanted a broad definition of care experience that encapsulated the vast range of different experiences that people with experience of care may have had. It will be fundamental, in that some aspects of access to services and so on are reliant on care experience. I will bring in Gavin Henderson to say a little more about the work that has been done since the consultation closed.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
I am saying that I would encourage headteachers to look at every other solution, whether that be things such as part timetables or removing children from the school but, equally, still ensuring that they are able to have an education and transition back into school. I do not believe that exclusions—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
In order to deliver on the Promise, it will need to end.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
The Promise
Meeting date: 26 March 2025
Natalie Don-Innes
We need to understand that, in exceptional circumstances, a part-time timetable or a flexible approach might be needed to appropriately support a child or a young person who might have been out of school for days or months and to enhance their transition back into school.
However, I and the Scottish Government have been very clear that part-time timetables for a child or a young person who is returning from an exclusion should be used only in the short term, not for long periods, because that approach is an effort to transition children and young people back into school. That approach should be taken only in the short term, for a defined period, and aims and conditions should be recorded in a plan that will allow the child to transition back into the school day.
