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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 984 contributions
|
Criminal Justice Committee
Emergency Release of Prisoners and Other Key Challenges in Scotland’s Prisons
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Katy Clark
So it might well be that a large number of those prisoners are not suitable, for whatever reasons. Your understanding is that it might not be 500 or 550 who are released and that it could be less. Is that correct? Is that your understanding?
Criminal Justice Committee
Emergency Release of Prisoners and Other Key Challenges in Scotland’s Prisons
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Katy Clark
But will they be the people who will make the decisions? It is a legislative process, so it will not be assessed by people who work closely with the individual prisoners. It will be a more crude process. Is that your understanding?
Criminal Justice Committee
Emergency Release of Prisoners and Other Key Challenges in Scotland’s Prisons
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Katy Clark
Exactly.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Child Payment
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Katy Clark
As you said earlier, it is a question of prioritisation. If the choice were between putting more money into the Scottish child payment and putting it into targeted childcare and other initiatives, where would you tend to fall?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Child Payment
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Katy Clark
I am looking for advice.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Child Payment
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Katy Clark
If you were to focus on initiatives that you think are more targeted at poverty, is the Scottish child payment an example of the kind of approach—a direct payment—that is more effective?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Child Payment
Meeting date: 30 May 2024
Katy Clark
The cost of the Scottish child payment is forecast to rise from £457 million to £492 million. Jack Evans has spoken about the need for prioritisation. Do the witnesses think that the Scottish child payment justifies its cost? The witnesses we have heard from in previous evidence sessions have very much been of the view that it does. Do you think that, across the range of policies that are intended to address poverty, money is better put into increasing the Scottish child payment or perhaps into another initiative such as childcare, employability or the raft of anti-poverty initiatives that may be possible?
Criminal Justice Committee
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Katy Clark
I will pick up on the issue of lists and vetting, which, as you know, cabinet secretary, has been a massive issue in recent times. That issue might not necessarily be dealt with in the bill before us, but perhaps you could provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.
As you know, HMICS has advised the committee that it thinks that the chief constable should be provided with the power of dismissal in cases where a person cannot retain their vetting status. Indeed, Lady Elish Angiolini also advised that there should be a power of summary dismissal in some cases.
Given the massive nature of some of the issues that have been coming forward recently, what consideration have you given as to whether the legislative framework around vetting is strong enough, and what more could be done to ensure that there is an on-going focus on vetting as we move forward?
I appreciate that there may be one-off reviews, but we want that focus to be embedded. Are you actively considering that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Katy Clark
So there is work on-going.
More generally, with regard to the bill before us and the models that the Scottish Government is taking forward, one witness told the committee that an independent complaints process
“would be the gold standard.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 8 May 2024; c 18.]
Witnesses have made it clear not only that there needs to be public confidence in the complaints process, but that the police cannot police themselves.
What are your views on the role of Police Scotland’s professional standards department in continuing to internally assess and categorise, and investigate, complaints? More generally, is there scope for more independence in the current system in Scotland? What have your considerations been in that regard?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Scottish Child Payment
Meeting date: 23 May 2024
Katy Clark
I want to pick up on something that Danny Dorling said. If it would be a very lengthy answer, maybe he could write to the committee instead. He referred to 2005 and the stunting of children’s growth at that time. Given that that was when tax credits were being brought in and a lot of money was being targeted to some of the poorest families—particularly working families—and there were very significant reductions in child poverty, it would be helpful to have a better understanding of the point that you were making, Danny.
