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 1267 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS 24 and the Scottish Ambulance Service)
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
What is that proportion?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS 24 and the Scottish Ambulance Service)
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
What is the vacancy rate for GPs who take calls during your busy periods?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS 24 and the Scottish Ambulance Service)
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I think that the longest time for which people were waiting on a phone to get help and advice was over two hours. What do you feel you could have done differently, looking back at December last year, that you will take forward to this year’s December to try to avoid the same thing happening again?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS 24 and the Scottish Ambulance Service)
Meeting date: 20 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
What is the learning that you have taken?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I will speak briefly on amendment 27, and I thank the General Medical Council for its input on this subject.
Amendment 27, in the name of Tess White, would amend section 15, which deals with the confidentiality of information, and permits a disclosure of information to “professional healthcare regulatory bodies”. That would further enhance patient safety, because there might be circumstances in which such information points towards a potential risk but in which it is only through further investigation and/or correlation with other information that is held by the regulator that the scale of the risk becomes apparent.
I note that Carol Mochan’s amendment 26 takes a similar approach to Tess White’s amendment 27 in adding the Health and Safety Executive to the list of bodies. Our amendment 27 uses the term “professional healthcare regulatory bodies”, which is a phrase that includes all regulators that are overseen by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, including the Health and Safety Executive. Our amendment therefore covers the Health and Safety Executive.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a practising national health service general practitioner.
Amendment 11, in the name of Tess White, is a probing amendment to facilitate debate about the length of time that a commissioner should serve in a single term. The amendment would reduce that period from eight years, which is currently in the bill, to five years. As a point of comparison, the Patient Safety Commissioner for England is appointed for a term of three years, with the possibility of a second term.
I note from the bill’s policy memorandum that the period of appointment was chosen because it is in line with the terms and conditions of other parliamentary commissioners. Those were standardised 13 years ago by the Scottish Parliamentary Commissions and Commissioners etc (Scotland) Act 2010. In the intervening period, the commissioner system has not been substantively evaluated. Meanwhile, as the Finance and Public Administration Committee and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body have highlighted, the number of commissioners could rise from seven to as many as 14. That would be a significant and expensive extension of the public sector. It should follow that the tenure in office is considered as a question of good governance.
I recognise that the bill includes provision for early termination and gives the SPCB some flexibility in the area. Nevertheless, the period in post that is provided in statute matters, because commissioners need to consistently demonstrate that they are serving the public interest as well as the public purse. I will welcome input from the minister and other members on that point.
I move amendment 11.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Given the minister’s reassurance, I will not move the amendment.
Amendment 17 not moved.
Amendment 18 moved—[Sandesh Gulhane].
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I am keen to see whether we can facilitate a discussion between now and stage 3 about where the issue might sit but, for now, I seek to withdraw amendment 11.
Amendment 11, by agreement, withdrawn.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I disagree. What we have in the bill at the moment is a strategic plan, which looks at where the commissioner wants to go, and we have some annual reporting. It seems to me to be very sensible that a public body should say what its plan for a year is, and that it should then report against that plan. That is what I would expect most public bodies to do, and I think that the public expect public bodies to do that, so that people are aware of where their money is being spent and how the body—in this case, the commissioner—is going about their job.
I therefore press amendment 12.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 13 June 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We are happy to work with the minister, so I will not move amendment 19.
Amendment 19 not moved.
Section 3 agreed to.
After section 3
Amendment 20 moved—[Sandesh Gulhane].
