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 2182 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
Will the minister provide assurance that there will be consultation with British Transport Police, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen and other trade unions about how we can get the solutions that we need?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour on Scotland’s railways. (S6O-00865)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
I note the transport minister’s comments to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee today that legislation may be required to tackle antisocial behaviour. It is clear that we have to deal with the problem that is in front of us. In my West Scotland region, there has been a concerning and consistent trend of extreme violence, particularly between teenage girls, on the railway. It is clear that staff need better support and we must ensure that ticket officers are protected and staffing is increased to ensure safe railways.
It is also clear that—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
Good morning to the panel. I want to focus on the signposting journey. Throughout the evidence that we have taken so far, we have heard that one of the barriers to signposting is perhaps the constantly changing landscape of service providers. There are also barriers for patients in relation to communication and understanding what is available. How can we improve people’s understanding of what is available and the communication that exists to let people know about it?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
That is very helpful.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
I thank the panel for those responses.
I heard what Harjit Sandhu said about the GP traditionally being the gatekeeper. I think that people are trying to find other avenues. However, some of the written submissions that the committee has received, particularly from the health and social care partnerships, suggest that there is still nervousness about people on a self-referral pathway going from pillar to post and ending up in an emergency setting, because there is no relationship with the first point of contact—the GP.
Do we need to drill down into that to understand who needs to go via the GP as the first point of contact in order to access other services? After all, as some of the panel’s answers have suggested, self-referral might be easier for some people than others. Is there an acceptance that we need to look at individuals and their needs?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
Good morning, panel. We have already touched on self-referral pathways, but I am interested in the public’s awareness of self-referral. We know that there are initiatives out there, such as pharmacy first, which we have talked about a bit, and the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde right care, right place web resource, which tells people where they should go and when. According to research that has been done for the inquiry, public awareness of some of those initiatives is not always high; in particular, public awareness of when to self-refer outwith pharmacies is not high. I think that a lot of people are aware of the pharmacy avenue, but perhaps not other avenues.
My first, broad question, therefore, is: how can we raise awareness of self-referral and people’s ability to self-refer? As I have mentioned pharmacies, I ask Clare Morrison to answer that question first.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
Is your sense that it is working effectively when someone is signposted to an AHP or whoever and they go on that journey, or do people sometimes go round the houses, for want of a better expression, and end up back at the GP?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Alternative Pathways to Primary Care
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
Last week, we heard some evidence about the requirement for protected learning time for everyone who is involved in a practice, which includes reception staff. Other people have talked about how we can protect that time properly. Dr Marshall, I do not know whether you have had experience of, for example, being part of NHS 24 or of covering phone lines in your practice, but I believe that that there might be ways of ensuring that people feel that they are getting a service from their practice while putting in place protected learning time for everyone who works in the practice. Can you say something about that?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Covid-19 Update
Meeting date: 15 March 2022
Paul O'Kane
At the most recent meeting of the cross-party group on learning disability, the issue of access to vaccination was once again raised by people who have a learning disability and their family carers. Will the First Minister ensure that people who have a learning disability and can be more vulnerable are called for the spring booster programme? Will she ensure that, when reasonable adjustments are required—such as for people who have autism and find it difficult to be in large vaccination sites—they are made?
