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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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
Kirsty’s screen has gone dark. Maybe one the other local authorities can respond while we see what is going on with her connection.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
We cannot see you, Kirsty. Maybe you should turn the lights on. [Laughter.]
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
I think that Stewart left the call. I am not sure whether he has managed to come back.
Oh—he is back. We will hear from him before I bring in Wendy Brownlie.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
Wendy Brownlie is nodding.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
Would you like to take a stab at that final question, Carrie?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
I confirm that we are agreed that we will close the petition.
I thank members for their consideration of the petitions. That brings the public part of today’s meeting to an end. We will consider our final agenda item in private.
11:48 Meeting continued in private until 12:09.Education, Children and Young People Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
Welcome back, everyone. The next item on our agenda is consideration of public petitions. First, we will consider PE1548, which was lodged by Beth Morrison. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce national guidance on the use of restraint and seclusion in all schools. Full details of the petition’s aims are provided in members’ papers.
The committee last considered the petition at our meeting on 4 May, when we noted that a working group had been developing new human rights-based, non-statutory guidance to minimise the use of restraint in schools.
In May, the committee agreed to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to seek an update on timescales for the publication of the guidance. The cabinet secretary stated in her response that the draft guidance would be put to public consultation. That was launched on 21 June and closed yesterday.
The cabinet secretary noted in her letter that
“The draft guidance focusses on preventative support that should be in place to minimise restraint and provides detailed advice and safeguards that should be followed if restraint is used”
and that it
“outlines restraints that should never be used on children and young people, such as prone and other high risk physical restraints.”
The guidance also clarifies that, should any form of restraint be used, that should be recorded.
The cabinet secretary also explained that the Scottish Government will consider placing the guidance on a statutory basis should the non-statutory guidance fail to have the desired effect.
In response to the cabinet secretary’s letter, the petitioner stated that, although some of the guidance is “good”, she is
“extremely concerned that unless the guidance is statutory, nothing will change for the staff, or children affected.”
She also expressed her disappointment that the draft guidance does not have a dedicated section for children with additional support needs. She points out that children with ASN and disabilities are
“disproportionately affected by physical intervention”.
Do members have comments on the petition?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
That is great. What else have we got? We recognise that we want the guidance to be embedded and bedded in, with the caveats mentioned. We want to make sure that the guidance serves its purpose, and we reinforce that we have concerns about the lack of statutory underpinning. That will not prevent our closing the petition, but the matter is certainly on our radar.
Does the committee agree to close the petition, write to the cabinet secretary to ask what the Government’s next steps might be on moving forward with statutory underpinning and about how the guidance will be monitored, and share with the Scottish Government the issues that were raised by the petitioner? In relation to Graeme Dey’s point, we could also flag in our legacy paper that our successor committee might want to consider the petition. Are we all content with that approach?
Members indicated agreement.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Petitions
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
That is great.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny: Early Learning and Childcare
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Sue Webber
Good morning, and welcome to the 25th meeting in 2022 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. Our first item of business is an evidence session with local authority representatives on funding for early learning and childcare. The session will inform our pre-budget scrutiny.
I welcome Margot Black, early years manager in the children and young people service, and Kirsty Maxwell, finance business partner for education and lifelong learning, finance and corporate governance, who are both from Scottish Borders Council; Wendy Brownlie, head of education performance and improvement at Argyll and Bute Council; and Carrie Lindsay, executive director of education and children’s services, and Stewart Westwater, quality improvement officer for early years, who are both from Fife Council.
I have a bit of housekeeping before we begin. We are having a hybrid meeting today, with all our witnesses participating virtually. I have asked committee members to address their questions to a particular witness or witnesses. However, other witnesses might wish to respond to the question, so I ask that witness to put an R in the chat box if they wish to speak. The clerks will be monitoring the chat box more than I will be, and we will bring people in when we can. I reassure the witnesses that it is not necessary to respond to every question. If you do not think that you have anything to add on a particular question, that is fine—please just let us know. If you are asked a question but do not have the information to hand, it is okay to say that. You will have the option to follow up in writing after the meeting.
We will crack on with the session. The first questions are from my colleague Graeme Dey.
