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 3405 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sue Webber
Thank you very much for all those answers, Mr Bruce. We have heard a lot about training and induction, and you have reintroduced the review system. You have also mentioned recognising sexual harassment and engaging with survivors. I want to ascertain what systems you have put in place to allow members of your staff to feel confident about raising issues of concern regarding current working practices, governance and issues that they may be uncomfortable with in their working practice.
10:00Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sue Webber
I suppose that that is possible because you have a small team of 12, as I think you said, so you get to know and trust everybody quite well.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Sue Webber
There are many stakeholders on your list. How do you foresee managing that? The group crosses all of society.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Sue Webber
At the moment, local authorities are having to close many of their public toilets as a result of cost challenges. Indeed, that is a significant issue in the city of Edinburgh. Would that also be covered under the group’s remit?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 3 February 2022
Sue Webber
Not me then.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Sue Webber
Since the introduction of the recorded police warning scheme, which effectively decriminalised class B and C drugs, the number of cannabis users admitted to psychiatric hospitals has increased by 74 per cent. In light of that, do you still support the policy and, indeed, its extension, which has effectively decriminalised class A drugs?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Sue Webber
Colleagues spoke at length earlier about the need for radical interventions and learning from elsewhere. I am concerned by that. I think that we should look far closer to home and at what is working well to save lives in Scotland now. My colleague Miles Briggs mentioned naloxone. There were representations this week from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society about the lack of consistency with naloxone. Should we not be looking at accelerating and embedding services that are doing well and are saving lives in Scotland now, but which are not provided across the country? Do you see that as a priority?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Sue Webber
Thank you, Mr Strang.
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Sue Webber
Thank you, minister, for that reply. We have had a few very productive sessions in our joint committee meetings. My recollection of yesterday’s session with Mr Malthouse might be a little different from that of others, because I felt that it was quite collegiate and that he was always seeking to work collaboratively with you.
However, from some of today’s questions, and from the focus in particular of the Scottish National Party and Green Government members, I am concerned that the argument and positioning around consumption rooms are now there just in order to stoke a grievance, and that they have created something that can be used to prevent us from tackling the issue and from adopting new policies and tactics that we can use now to stop people from dying. Will you comment on that, minister?
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting)
Reducing Drug Deaths in Scotland and Tackling Problem Drug Use
Meeting date: 2 February 2022
Sue Webber
We could take a short-term approach and replicate what is working well to address the immediate crisis. I am glad that you alluded to some of the services that are provided by non-governmental agencies. The third sector is key. How could we help the third sector organisations that are carrying much of the burden and have done so throughout the pandemic? What can we do with financing? How can we give them longevity and security of funding?
