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 1121 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
Tied to this is the stress that an appellant feels about the process. Going through the process can be a stressful time, particularly when it comes to waiting and to the collection of information. What more could we do to make the experience less stressful?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
So you think that perhaps more flexibility in the system would allow those agencies to consider how they participate. I imagine that, often, they will be supporting a volume of cases.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
The use of technology to make the system less stressful and quicker is of interest. In another committee, I made a visit to the SCTS to discuss the use of technology across the service. Could we do more on that front, with a bit of investment in testing change through technology? For example, could the recording of notes using artificial intelligence and the use of more virtual hearings—which you mentioned—be helpful?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
My questions build on the theme of delay to appeals. We have had a discussion about resourcing and about support for the process. Are there other barriers that cause delays, and what action is being taken to deal with those? Previous answers have touched on some of that, but perhaps Ms Devlin could talk about other barriers in the appeals process.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
Are there challenges with the collation of the information? I know that there have been issues with the timescale for information collation in some other parts of the application process. Do you feel that that is not an issue?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Social Security Scotland
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
Ms Black, do you want to comment on any other barriers that exist within the appeals process?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Suicide Prevention
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
It is very important for us to hear those points. I have heard from other third sector organisations that, when funding is late in being announced or committed to, there is a sense that organisations will bridge the gap somehow or that such services will always exist. However, as Neil Mathers outlined, the challenge is that it takes a lot of resource to have such services funded by public donations or other grants and trusts. Have people experienced that bridging issue when the Government has been late in delivering funding?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Suicide Prevention
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
I am keen to understand whether details of spending on suicide prevention should be included in progress reports on the strategy. Would that give people a better sense of the progress that was or was not being made in budget allocation? Would it be helpful in showing the wider picture and allowing organisations to plan better? Should the committee consider that matter in our conversations with the Government?
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Suicide Prevention
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
Good morning to the panel. My questions will focus on the funding landscape and the funding of suicide prevention work in particular. Yesterday, I read comments from Samaritans Scotland and SAMH on the broader picture of funding for mental health services. Samaritans Scotland has said that, given the challenges,
“There is no indication that the Scottish Government will meet its own target of increasing mental health spend to 10% of the NHS budget”.
Samaritans also recognised that “Creating Hope Together” is a very ambitious strategy and said that funding is required to deliver it. I want to give Neil Mathers and Dan Farthing the opportunity to speak to those comments, and then we will have a broader conversation.
Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee
Suicide Prevention
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Paul O'Kane
I am interested in what you said, Dan, about the adequacy of funding and the sustainability of funding. Last week, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations was in the Parliament speaking about those issues in a broader context in the voluntary and third sector. I am interested in the third sector work that is going on in this space, which many people round the table are engaged in. Does year-to-year funding present challenges to your ability to test change and test what works, because you need a sense of security to do that? I imagine that, within this ambitious plan, we want to test what works. Is year-to-year funding limiting or holding back initiatives that could move forward?
