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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 3584 contributions
|
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
I take your point that the Scottish Government did not really address the issues of the petition in its initial response. I also take your point about drawing attention to the Scottish Government’s own homework as evidence of anything. It would be surprising if the Scottish Government came back and said that it did not think that it had been doing a good job or that the whole thing was not a stunning success—that does not tend to be what Government reports on its own homework do. Therefore, there is nothing particularly independent in the character of that.
Should the committee be quite strong in the recommendation that the Scottish Government should respond seriously to the issue that the petitioner has raised and that an independent voice should be appointed to conduct a review of the petition?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Good morning, and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.
Our colleague Fergus Ewing will join us shortly. He is at a breakfast meeting in the Parliament and will come along to proceedings as soon as that has concluded.
The first item on our agenda is, as always, the technical one, which is simply for colleagues to agree that we will take in private agenda item 4, which is consideration of evidence that we will hear. Are members content to take item 4 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
That is why I am genuinely confused. If there is a presumption of truth and no evidence to suggest that there was parental consent, and they are saying that there was no parental consent, then why are they not believed, since that criterion would have made them eligible?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you very much. That concludes the public part of our meeting. We will meet again on the second-last day of the parliamentary term—Wednesday 26 June.
11:14 Meeting continued in private until 11:23.Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Notwithstanding everything that we have heard, I will try to encapsulate the issue in my mind. If I was a Fornethy survivor and I believed that the circumstances that had placed me there were not freely determined by my parents, is that the basis for me to make a claim?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
I have two quick final questions. Given the attendant publicity that is associated with the scandal at Fornethy, and given your independent status, has the Scottish Government endeavoured to engage with you directly on the issues that have arisen in relation to Fornethy? You have talked about what I would call formal reporting mechanisms. Is that the chain of communication that has existed, or has any other communication taken place as a consequence of the attendant concern and publicity that are attached to Fornethy?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
That is the case.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you for those suggestions, Mr Golden. I know that you have previously concerned yourself with animal welfare issues relating to dogs—in particular, I seem to recall you speaking about electric-shock dog collars.
Are colleagues content to keep the petition open and to make the inquiries suggested by Mr Golden?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you very much. One of the reasons why we thought it would be useful to have you along is that we have kept hearing these two words, “Redress Scotland”, throughout the process, without having any particular understanding of the organisation. Also, I have felt at times that people have said, possibly unfairly to you, “That’s nothing to do with us. That’s for Redress Scotland”, and we have not been clear about where authority actually lies. It has also been suggested that you have no discretion to act, but at other times it has been suggested almost that you have all the discretion that you would care for to act.
In the first instance, I would like to understand what your role is and what the Scottish Government’s role is. What is the distinction between the two and where are the respective authorities in all that? You now have a chance to make plain what your role and the Scottish Government’s role actually are.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Jackson Carlaw
Our final petition for consideration this morning is PE2091, which has been lodged by Kirsty Solman on behalf of Stand with Kyle Now. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide funding to enable a CAMHS worker and a school nurse to be placed in our secondary schools. The petitioner believes that access to a CAMHS worker and nurse would allow children who are struggling with their mental health to be identified early and would make it possible for any referrals to be completed correctly and efficiently.
The SPICe briefing notes that school counselling services for children aged 10 and over are available in all local authorities, although the delivery varies across local authorities, with some providing authority-wide services rather than allocating practitioners to particular schools or areas.
A 2023 report by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland identified further barriers to accessing school counselling services and recommended that all local authorities should have clear waiting time targets and that compliance with those targets should be part of the Scottish Government’s evaluation of the services.
In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government highlights that all primary and secondary schools in Scotland are able to access the support of school nurse services, and that the school nurse role has changed over time and now includes a focus on emotional health and wellbeing. School nurses can support the mental health of children and make referrals to CAMHS, where appropriate.
This is a new petition. If we wish to keep the petition open and to seek further information, do colleagues have any suggestions about action that we might take or who we might contact?
