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 1696 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Disability Employment Gap
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Claire Baker
Before I bring in Maggie Chapman, I will say that it was anticipated that Skills Development Scotland would be on the panel this morning, but for understandable reasons it is not here. Do you want to say a wee bit about the national bodies and national partnerships that are important to delivery in this area? You have spoken about local authorities, the postcode lottery and local delivery, but who are the national players here that are important?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
I have a couple of quick questions—one is perhaps more expansive than the other. The first is on programme 4, which is entitled “Skilled workforce”. In recent years, there have been a number of reports, including the enterprise and skills review, which is supposed to be implemented, and the Audit Scotland report, which was critical of relationships between the Scottish Funding Council and others.
James Withers is now undertaking a review of skills, which is the one issue that those on all our industrial business panels talk about. They say that they do not have the right skills or the right people in the right places. When will people stop telling the committee that? It consistently comes up as one of the key issues for all sectors, from tourism to renewables; those in every sector talk about their frustration at the skills landscape.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
Thank you.
Jamie Halcro Johnston has a question. Is it on a point of clarification?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
The Fraser of Allander Institute carried out an inquiry into the small business bonus scheme at the request of the Scottish Government and Tom Arthur, as the minister responsible, who has answered a few questions in Parliament on the issue. Is there an update on the Government’s consideration of that work? What steps are being taken next in that regard?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
That brings us to the end of the evidence session. I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for joining us and for the evidence that we have heard.
11:57 Meeting continued in private until 12:08.Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
Jamie Halcro Johnston has a supplementary.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
It is also the role of ministers to do that with the First Minister.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
Colin Beattie has some questions.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
Thank you. At this point, I will bring in other members, who will initially focus on the areas that we wrote to the cabinet secretary about. We will start with Gordon MacDonald.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Claire Baker
Good morning and welcome to the Economy and Fair Work Committee’s second meeting of 2023. Our first item of business is to make a decision on whether to take items 4 to 6 in private. Are members content to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
