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 1714 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
I will close on this point, convener. We have heard a really useful observation on the comparison with other comparable cities and urban areas in England. I am thinking, for instance, about areas in which progress has been limited by persistent disadvantage, deep poverty or multiple deprivation—we could describe it in different ways. If we were to cut funding by 60 per cent across the board for those most deprived communities—or “challenge authorities” as they are called in Scotland—what results would we see?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
So it is for PEF, but not for the core attainment challenge funding.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
On Professor Ainscow’s point about quick fixes and timescales, I note that the attainment challenge started in 2016 and we have spent £1 billion of taxpayers’ money on it. When would you expect to see discernible progress? After all, six years does not really seem like a quick fix—it is the entirety of a child’s secondary education.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
I will come back later to my substantive question about the other Ps in Dundee being “public pounds” and the substantial cuts that are being made at the moment.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
I want to ask about the allocation of resource. As you will recognise, part of the reason for the inquiry is that significant changes have been made to how the resource that the Government spends on behalf of the Scottish taxpayer—and which is, rightly, significant—is allocated across Scotland. I have asked ministers questions on this, but I do not think that I have had much of an answer. There seems to be a move away from an analysis of multiple deprivation, although I recognise that there is poverty in all parts of the country and that the money is being spread more widely. Do you think that the recent changes to the allocation of that money will be beneficial to the educational recovery of the most deprived children and communities in Scotland?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
I understand the limitations. Do you understand the rationale for the change? Have you heard anyone explain it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
Is that data being used to allocate the funding?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
My understanding is that the money has been allocated according to the traditional funding formula.
Dr Robertson, when the First Minister announced the initial funding in 2016, she said that the attainment challenge would
“focus specifically on, and provide additional funding for, literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing in primary schools in our most deprived areas. A large proportion of the Attainment Fund has been allocated to the ... local authorities which have the highest”
number or
“concentration of pupils living in poverty.”
The rationale was quite clear at the time. However, Dundee has had its funding from that fund cut by 79 per cent. What do you think the impact of that will be on the poorest people in my community?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 February 2022
Michael Marra
I share some of those concerns, and I am sure that colleagues will ask about them later.
I wish to ask Professor Francis about the allocation of resource to the most deprived areas. It sounds to me like the work that you have done has been directed at this area of making change. We are facing a 79 per cent cut in Dundee, as I have said, so with £4 in every £5 spent supporting 129 staff, we are looking at the loss of more than 100 staff who are working with the most vulnerable young people in the city. You will understand why I am animated by the decision. Do you think that such a change will support the kind of change that you are looking for?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Covid-19 and Schools
Meeting date: 19 January 2022
Michael Marra
I will push you a little on that. There has been a headline change to how the policy is delivered across Scotland. In Dundee, money from the Scottish attainment challenge currently supports 120 staff, and I believe that 25 of those staff are to be cut this year as a result of the cut. Over this parliamentary session, 80 per cent of the funding will be lost, which will affect about 100 members of staff who are working directly with the most deprived members of our community. Areas such as speech and language therapy, which we heard about earlier, are suffering immediate cuts. Did the Scottish Government suggest that approach to COSLA and did COSLA then agree to it on that basis? I do not understand the rationale for the shift. What is COSLA’s perspective?
