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 1502 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Ruth Maguire will ask questions on articulation.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Thank you, Stewart. I think that Carrie Lindsay wants to come in.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Thank you, convener. The screens have gone blank.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I want to ask about quality assurance. Obviously, we want to ensure that childcare of a very high standard is provided consistently across all local authorities for all our children. At the moment, we have a mix of processes involving Education Scotland, local authorities and the Care Inspectorate. I am interested in how valuable that is and how easy it is to manage. Would there be a simpler way to assist continual improvement in quality and assurance?
The background to that question is that we are looking at a review, and Professor Muir commented that we should look at how we assess standards. I will direct that question to the quality improvement officers—Carrie Lindsay and Stewart Westwater—but I am also interested in hearing from Wendy Brownlie.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Kaukab Stewart
Can I push you to say what the disadvantages are? All three ways of assessing have their merits and their different areas. Is there any merit in having one body that could encompass all the different areas? Would that be more helpful?
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Kaukab Stewart
What is the Scottish Government’s response to reports that some ethnic minority teaching professionals have experienced racist online abuse after sharing their plans for more diversity in Scottish education at the Scottish learning festival? Will the First Minister join me in condemning the racist abuse faced by St Albert’s primary school in her constituency and the racist graffiti that has been found on the campus of the University of Glasgow in my constituency? Will she further agree with me that anti-racist education is important in ensuring a more diverse and inclusive Scotland?
Meeting of the Parliament
Excellence in Scottish Education
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I will answer it quickly and wind up. Mr Kerr needs to remember that there are also teaching union representatives on the board, and those unions represent thousands of teachers.
I commend teachers and pupils in Scotland for their hard work, their resilience, their enthusiasm and the results, which they can take pride in through challenging days. I commend the Scottish Government for commissioning the Muir report and I encourage it to be bold in delivering on the recommendations.
15:45Meeting of the Parliament
Excellence in Scottish Education
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I believe that the increase in the Scottish child payment has changed the parameters for applying for free school meals. I believe that that is being looked at.
As someone who is in regular contact with schools, I am not surprised to hear that almost nine in 10 headteachers suggest that improvements have been made in closing the poverty-related attainment gap, despite the impact of the Covid pandemic.
As a former teacher, I know—and want to remind everyone about—the joy of seeing children developing and thriving socially, emotionally and academically and having fun learning.
I place on record my respect and gratitude for all members of the education profession, who work with compassion and dedication to deliver the best outcomes for the pupils in their care. Teachers have borne a huge responsibility as they have supported pupils and families throughout the pandemic, turning on a sixpence to upskill, go online and deliver remote and in-person learning while also dealing with their own personal circumstances.
Schools undertake a range of social inclusion work to mitigate the effects of the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government rightly prioritises funding to support teachers and pupils throughout Scotland with measures including the Scottish child payment and the on-going expansion of free school meals, which will be available to all primary school pupils by the end of this session of Parliament. I urge the Government to go further with free school meals when it is possible to do so. It has also provided the school clothing grant and increased the number of hours of free childcare.
All that work means that teachers deserve decent salaries. It is worth noting that teachers in Scotland are currently the best-paid teaching workforce in the UK. The starting salary for a teacher in Scotland is £33,724, which is considerably higher than the £28,000 starting salary proposed for teachers in England and Wales.
Last week, I attended the Scottish Learning Festival in Dunfermline. It was a joy to be among pupils again and to speak to them about the real-life innovation that is going on in schools. This year’s festival theme was placing learners at the heart of Scottish education, and the festival was busy and vibrant.
The cabinet secretary chose that event to launch the national discussion referred to earlier, an initiative suggested by Professor Ken Muir in his report, “Putting Learners at the Centre: Towards a Future Vision for Education”.
The national discussion is specifically designed to encourage and facilitate the inclusion of learners and teachers in education reform. That takes time and it has to be done properly to make sure that it is meaningful.
Meeting of the Parliament
Excellence in Scottish Education
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I will.
Meeting of the Parliament
Excellence in Scottish Education
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Kaukab Stewart
I always welcome the opportunity to debate education in Parliament in a constructive spirit. It is only right that we should reflect on as many positive experiences and examples of success as possible, as well as considering the challenges for further improvement.
I start with a reminder of the four capacities embedded in the curriculum for excellence: pupils should be confident individuals, effective contributors, successful learners and responsible citizens. Those capacities remain as relevant today as when curriculum for excellence was first developed. Let us also remember that the OECD values Scotland’s approach highly, and has described curriculum for excellence as a “holistic, coherent and future-oriented” approach to learning. Indeed some countries are looking to adopt elements of our curriculum for excellence.
On the back of that ground-breaking system, schools are delivering success in exam results and positive destinations. Pass rates for national 5, higher and advanced higher have increased compared with 2019, with A passes also up. Achievement in skills-based qualifications is close to the highest ever level. Positive destinations for school leavers stand at 93.2 per cent, with many schools achieving their best ever results against that measurement. I welcome the Scottish Funding Council’s report on widening access in 2020-21, which found that 16.7 per cent of higher education students now come from our most deprived areas and that, with a continued focus from our Government, we are on track to meet the longer-term target of 20 per cent by 2030.
