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 812 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
The conversation around free school meals is very interesting, and it demonstrates really well that it is all about prioritisation. If children are sitting in school and they are hungry, they will not learn at their best or perform at their best level. It is all about choices, and there is evidence that having universal free school meals increases the uptake of school meals among those children who need it most, as it reduces the stigma. We are talking about further investment and the finance behind it, and I appreciate that there are capital costs as well, but surely it is a priority for all local authority areas.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
It would be interesting to look at that in more detail if any further work on this were to be carried out.
The attainment gap seemed to be narrower, generally speaking. Over the past five years, the higher the level of qualification, the smaller the gap seemed to be in attainment. What is the thinking behind that? Is there any reason or explanation for it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
On my second question, are you able to explain why the higher the level of qualifications is, the smaller the attainment gap is? For example, at advanced higher level, the gap is smaller than it is at national 5 and higher levels.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Up until this point, why has there not been some curiosity to look into that aspect? Has it not stood out as something that perhaps needs to be looked at—in, of course, a positive way?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Thank you, convener. Thank you, panel. I am just looking at the variation in results that are associated with SIMD areas. I wonder why different approaches to certification can lead to significantly different attainment gaps. Can you explain what is behind that? Maybe that question is more for Dr Stewart.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
To be clear, the trend has been over the past five years or so. It has not just been the case during the Covid period.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
I should declare an interest as a parent of autistic children. It is good to see that parents are central to what is going on, because they are a huge influence. There is positive stuff in the action plan on providing better information, but that can sometimes be quite overwhelming without guidance. There should be information on establishing parent carer groups, because peer support is so critical, and on the national advocacy service, which currently supports only a limited number of people.
I am interested in what changes pupils and parents are seeing as a result of the work that is going on, and why, despite the action plan, some issues that were raised in the Morgan report are coming up again in the national discussion. There is still a bit of a fight there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
Okay. That is great. Thanks.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Stephanie Callaghan
I am looking at my papers and there is a table in front of me that shows the number of pupils with an identified ASN and the time spent in mainstream classrooms. I see that you have that in front of you, too—that is great. I think that I know the answer to this question, but I want to be clear. I take it that that does not take account of pupils being out of mainstream classes because of part-time timetables, or their class being at wellbeing rooms, nurture rooms or whatever. If it does not, is that data also available and could you provide us with it?
I am not sure who is best placed to answer.
