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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Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]
Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Siobhian Brown
It is amendment 172, which enacts our decision to merge the victim notification scheme and the victim information scheme. As we move forward with this, all victims will be contacted by the victim contact team. This is the underpinning legislation. You will see, when we move to the other amendments, that there will also be a legal gateway for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to provide data to the victim contact team so that victims can be contacted.
In short, this is the underpinning legislation to allow for data to be given to the victim contact team so that victims can be contacted.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
That is part of it. As I said in my opening remarks, there has been a delay in issuing the voluntary code of practice because of pressures on the team. We are looking at doing that within the next six months. The draft has gone to key stakeholders to try to simplify the process. That will be in addition to what will be online on the Scottish Government’s website.
Does anyone else have any views on how the voluntary code of practice will help?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
I would like to give it some further thought, but we are always open to new suggestions as to how we can simplify the process. I am probably putting my colleagues on the spot, but I do not know whether they have any initial thoughts about the legal implications of Mr Ewing’s suggestion, or whether it is simply a case of our going away and thinking about it.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
Legal aid is available for people who apply and are eligible for it. There should be no problem with anyone accessing justice if they would like to.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
Yes, that is my understanding. Do my officials want to say anything other than that?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
Yes, I think that it is. However, we do not have the exact number of how many dismissals there have been in the past 10 years; it has not been specifically on my radar in my ministerial role for the past two years per se. However, if there are ways in which we can improve the system, the Scottish Government is always willing to look at them.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
I would like them to do it.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
If I could, convener, I would like to start with a few opening remarks to provide a bit of clarity, as there is a bit of crossover between my portfolio and that of the Minister for Housing on the issue.
Thanks very much, everybody, for the opportunity to talk about the dismissal and the appointment of property factors, and to provide an update on the progress of the voluntary code of practice for the dismissal and the replacement of land-owning land maintenance companies.
My property law portfolio responsibility covers the dismissal and the appointment of property factors—sometimes referred to as switching—which includes the land-owning land maintenance companies. The Minister for Housing has portfolio responsibilities for the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011, which includes the register of properties factors and the code of conduct. My comments will focus specifically on my portfolio.
I know that the petitioner has called for legislation to cover the dismissal of property factors. Legislation is already in place that deals with that matter. If the title deeds of a property do not set out how the property factors are to be dismissed, provisions under the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 will apply.
As I have indicated in my previous responses to the committee, I consider that the existing remedies by which home owners might dismiss a factor are adequate and that a legislative change at this time is not necessary. I note that, in its response to the petition, Under One Roof said that the process to dismiss a property factor is not clear—I will come on to that—while the Property Managers Association Scotland considered that the current legislation on the matter is sufficient.
I recognise, however, that some home owners find the procedure to switch property factors complicated. A guidance note on manager burdens will be published shortly on the Scottish Government website, which will help home owners to navigate the various options with regard to establishing voting procedures.
I have spoken to my officials this morning and the website says that the guidance will be published shortly. I am told that the timescale is within the next few weeks, but there are a few technical issues with the graphics that are being added to the website.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
It is guidance on the various options for how voting procedures should be carried out when dealing with factors.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Siobhian Brown
I appreciate the petitioner’s comments and his experience, but it is quite rare that this has happened with factors. However, we need to ensure that a process is in place for anybody who wants to remove a factor. Usually, that is in the title deeds, so it would be unusual if that was not in place.
Moving forward, if someone feels intimidated because they have to get legal advice or go through the court process, I think that they should feel supported through our guidance. My officials might want to come in with something further here.
