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 2438 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
I will address directly with you, if I may, part of the struggle that employers have with the education system, to see whether it accords with your experience. Employers sometimes feel that there is a snobbery in the educational establishment about vocational training and about the types of disciplines and professional skills that they are looking for in candidates whom they wish to recruit. Do you agree? Have you come across that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
Thank you, I am enjoying your transparent honesty about what you have discovered. Kaukab Stewart, the deputy convener, will ask the next questions.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
James was obviously sharing his views on his colleague’s point of view. I hope that we will be able to maintain a degree of good manners, which I think we have done so far.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
I am sorry to interrupt you, Stephanie, but perhaps you would reprise your question to Professor Stobart. We lost you for a few seconds, which broke up the question.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
Absolutely. I am delighted to facilitate that. You might be speaking for a number of the rest of us as well. We will suspend for about five minutes.
10:36 Meeting suspended.10:41 On resuming—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
Yes—and quite difficult to capture in a single report such as this one, as you said.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
If I understood you correctly, Professor Stobart, you seemed to indicate that, with regard to educational opportunities, there was a cultural bias against that particular pathway. I think that Michael Marra has some questions on cultural connotations.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2021, which is being held virtually. I apologise for the late start, which was due to technical reasons.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Are members content to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private? I see lots of nodding heads. Thank you—that is agreed.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
A number of colleagues want to come in with quick-fire supplementary questions on the back of that line of questioning.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Upper Secondary Education and Student Assessment
Meeting date: 10 November 2021
Stephen Kerr
I had the distinct impression from our earlier conversation that I would be pushing on an open door if I shared those ideas with you. How can we change that culture in the educational establishment and change how it portrays vocational qualifications? You have spent a career on that.
