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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 2436 contributions
|
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
The safety and welfare of staff is paramount, and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service continues to invest in the repair and maintenance of its buildings so that it can deliver services to communities across Scotland. We will continue to work closely with the SFRS to identify the capital funding that it needs for buildings, fleet and equipment.
The fire stations with the fewest facilities are in remote locations and deal with very few incidents. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has introduced procedures to ensure that firefighters in those locations have workable solutions to ensure that contaminated personal protective equipment, for example, is dealt with safely.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
These Scottish Fire and Rescue Service temporary changes have been based on data and the premise that there should be no increased risk to the public or to firefighters. The SFRS has a predetermined response to high-rise fires. That response is already provided from multiple fire stations, and that will not change. Any large-scale incident will be quickly responded to with the necessary resources, including specialist high-reaching appliances from the local area and beyond. It remains the position that, in the event of a fire in a high-rise building, the SFRS will undertake a rescue of any person who is unable to self-evacuate and who is affected by fire and smoke.
It is important to emphasise that the SFRS does not respond to incidents from one single fire station. Operation control deploys the appropriate level of resources to every incident, based on predetermined response levels.
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
From memory, I think that the figure is three appliances in the member’s area. The SFRS has for some time faced challenge and has been unable to fully crew all appliances at all fire stations due to a range of factors, including absences and vacancy. That results in a need to deploy firefighters from other stations to crew priority appliances, which has additional overtime cost and creates uncertainty for individual firefighters about the station that they will operate out of in any given shift. The current initiative to temporarily withdraw a number of appliances from service is a tool to secure efficiencies and resolve the issue of appliances being taken off the run on that basis.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
If a child is placed in secure care via the children’s hearings system, the provisions that govern information sharing in that system allow for information about whether a compulsory supervision order has been made or how the hearing was otherwise changed. There is no provision in the bill to share information beyond that, because it is not an offence or behaviour alone that determines where a child is placed or for how long.
The system takes a holistic approach and considers how the child’s welfare needs as well as offence and behaviour engage with the secure care criteria.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
I do not have those figures at hand, but I am happy to write to Jamie Greene with them.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
The review report was published yesterday and we are considering its recommendations.
The bill is part of a wider strategic programme of work including the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill and work on the bairns’ hoose. On-going engagement is taking place with officials who are leading on this area to ensure that there is a joined-up approach across Government.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
The Scottish Government has provided the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service with an additional budget of £4.4 million on top of the £10 million uplift that was set out in the 2023-24 budget announcement. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has advised me that locations have been identified through risk modelling using historical incident data and have been assessed as being the least impactful in relation to response times for the first and second appliances attending incidents.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service currently has in the region of 635 operational fire appliances across Scotland and this modest reduction will allow it to ensure that more of the remaining 625 operational appliances are always available for deployment. The service has extended an invitation to any member who wishes to raise concerns with the local service officers to discuss that issue.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
Information provided by Police Scotland indicates that in the period since the 2021 act came into force, between August 2021 and February 2023, more than 5,000 reports of assaults or of threatening or abusive behaviour against retail workers have been received. Clearly, that number of reported incidents is very concerning and is unacceptable, but I hope that it also shows that retail employees are aware of the legislation and are using it. Last November, Police Scotland launched the national assault pledge and #NotPartOfTheJob campaign. It has also established a retailers forum where retailers can discuss issues and concerns and share best practice.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
The Scottish Government is committed to advancing the rights of child victims through legislative and non-legislative measures. Both the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill contain provisions to increase protection for the privacy and dignity of child victims. We recognise that children find aspects of the system particularly traumatising, so they will benefit from the trauma-informed and person-centred approaches that underpin the legislation.
We have also published our vision for the bairns’ hoose, which is a transformational, whole-system approach to delivering child protection, justice and health support and services to child victims.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 7 June 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you.
I very much agree that no one should have to put up with violence or threats in their workplace. We fully support law enforcement agencies having extensive powers to deal with such incidents.
When the law came into force, in 2021, the Scottish Government worked with Crimestoppers, Fearless and the Scottish Grocers Federation to run an awareness-raising campaign. I agree that it is important that workers and retailers know that the new law can help to protect them.
In addition, the member might be interested to know that a business crime prevention team within Police Scotland carries out business engagement days throughout Scotland to support the retail sector. It has also implemented the your safety matters external partners group, which consists of 14 members, including representatives of the retail sector.
I assure the member that the Scottish Government takes the matter very seriously. Coincidentally, I am meeting Dr Pete Cheema, from the Scottish Grocers Federation, this afternoon about this issue.
