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 1929 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
You have pre-empted my next question, which you might have heard me ask earlier, on parity of esteem and ensuring that this is not about the voluntary sector doing something more cheaply than the public sector. Euan Leitch talked about being asked to do more and more with less, and we have heard from SCVO and others—as well as from Rachel Cackett—that many organisations are at their lowest ebb. What else can be done to start to repair the relationship? Whatever happens, there has to be a kind of reset moment—although I feel that we have had lots of “reset” moments over the years. Is there one thing that could be done immediately that would start to really change the conversation and the approach?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
I think that Allan Faulds wants to comment.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its pre-budget fiscal update on 3 September, what the potential impact will be of its “review and reprofile of recruitment” at Social Security Scotland on the agency’s provision of front-line services to clients. (S6O-03704)
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 12 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
The cabinet secretary will recognise that the most recent workforce statistics have shown that, following the growth of staffing in Social Security Scotland, those figures have largely stabilised at approximately 3,800. We also know that, despite that, there have been on-going issues with service provision, long processing times, long call waiting times and complexities in the system. Those issues have been well debated in the chamber. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the decision will not have a detrimental impact on the progress that is being made?
Meeting of the Parliament
Decision Time
Meeting date: 11 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app froze. I just want to check that my “yes” vote was recorded.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 5 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
The challenge of being the last questioner is that we have covered a lot of ground. However, it is important to pull together some of what we have heard this morning.
In our conversation, we have focused on multiyear funding, as is right—it is at the core of the discussion. However, fair funding principles go beyond that, and a number of different things need to happen in order to move the issue forward. Witnesses might want to touch on anything that we have not covered on relationships or structures. We have heard about parity of esteem. What sorts of things need to be not just put forward but implemented and sustained in order to really help to renew that relationship?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 5 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
Some of the evidence that we heard when we met organisations over the summer was about the challenge between innovating and trying to sustain something that works. They said that, very often, people get stuck in a cycle between things having to be new and things that have been proved to work. You touched on that. Do you recognise it?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
Good morning. One aspect of the bill that the committee is interested in and concerned about is the domestic abuse provisions. We want to ensure that they are being engaged with. I note that, in the summer engagement, you met the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Chartered Institute of Housing to discuss those provisions. Will you give an update on those conversations? Do you feel that the discussions were productive in enabling understanding of the required training and the capacity of social landlords to take the action that they will need to take?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
Thank you for that answer. I make a similar point to Mr Stewart’s point about not reinventing the wheel. A lot of good practice already exists, and many RSLs have good policy. However, the challenge is often to ensure that those policies can be put into practice and that action can follow, which is what everyone wants to see in such scenarios. The responses of Scottish Women’s Aid and the Scottish Women’s Convention pointed to the fact that the actions that were outlined and the recommendations that were contained in the report, “Improving housing outcomes for women and children experiencing domestic abuse” still have to be pushed forward and not lost in this context. Will the minister say something about progress on that and engagement with that piece of work?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 5 September 2024
Paul O'Kane
Ian Bruce, when you comment, will you say something about the connection and relationship with local government, about which we have also heard? We heard a lot about good and positive relationships from TSIs that are helping to manage funds for whole-family wellbeing, for example. That does not work everywhere, and there is no consistency. What do you want to see in that space?
