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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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
That is really helpful; thank you very much, Lucy.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Good morning. It is good to see the witnesses here this morning. It was good to hear Shelley Buckley and Joanne Smith talking about neurodiversity and the long wait for help with quite basic things such as issues around sleep, positive parenting and communications with schools. Joanne Smith talked about long gaps and the disillusionment when young people are told that they do not meet the criteria for support. That certainly chimes with me. I should say that I am a parent to neurodiverse children and that I am a councillor in South Lanarkshire Council.
In South Lanarkshire, we have the autism resources co-ordination hub, or ARCH, which does amazing and quite groundbreaking work on holistic support and integrating the council, the third sector, the health service and parents and carers. One of the top things that parents ask for is advocacy support. Should that be a top priority for the Scottish Government? I direct that question to Mairi Stark first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Given that almost a quarter of girls in care get pregnant and that care leavers are at much higher risk of having their babies removed, what steps can we take to tackle stigma and to help care-experience young people to plan for the future and make confident decisions?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
I was thinking of either Lucy or Jackie Brock.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
I realise that you are probably talking about carers and families getting the support that they need from health and social care workers to do that well. On a wider and more general level, what training needs exist in the health and social care workforce in relation to sexual and reproductive health?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee (Virtual)
Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People
Meeting date: 18 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
That is great. It is really helpful.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
On the idea of having a wider focus, are you going to be looking at the need for qualitative data in education?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
I have a couple of different questions. One is on free school meals and another is on qualitative data.
On free school meals, I am delighted with the £72 million investment and the £22 million for school holiday clubs, although it is a bit concerning to hear that there is expected to be a 5.2 per cent real-terms reduction next year. I trust that those things will now be prioritised.
On the school holiday money, we know that part of the thinking behind having free school meals for primary children is the fact that it increases uptake among the most vulnerable children and it reduces the stigma.
This is a point for clarification. North Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council have approached this differently. North Lanarkshire Council is running its holiday lunch time clubs only for those children who currently get free school meals, whereas South Lanarkshire Council’s clubs are open to everyone. I would like some clarity on the funding for the school holidays. Is it expected to cover all children, or is it specifically for vulnerable children?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Stephanie Callaghan
My question follows on from Fergus Ewing mentioning children and young people with additional support needs, including those with neurodiversity. The Morgan review and other evidence that we have heard suggested that the focus often ends up being on children and young people who present with challenging behaviour, and that that is sometimes at the expense of other children in the class, who might also have additional support needs but do not present such behaviours. Can you provide any reassurance that that will be addressed?
