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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Thank you. Does Paul Sweeney or David Torrance have any questions on this section?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
We will come to that recommendation. Thank you. Another question that arose is in relation to what you said about an annually recurring citizens panel. Was that born out of your experience? Did you imagine Parliament hosting a weekend event like the one in which you all participated, or did you imagine a different framework for the annual citizens panel? In your suggestion, it would almost be leading the way and setting the agenda for what would follow in local panels and communities. Would it have a life of its own or would it have, as your panel did, a genesis here in the Parliament?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
This cannot become just a dialogue between you and me, Mr Sweeney, but I should point out that the commission on parliamentary reform looked at the matter, too, and there was quite strong resistance from the Government to allowing things to be that open, arguing that it would lead to less constructive answers to questions.
I should say that, in the 2011 to 2016 parliamentary session, I was able to attend Parliament open days in Oban, Dumfries and Stornoway. The Stornoway one was very well supported by the public; indeed, several hundred people attended the evening event, but perhaps that was because we were on one of the islands and the whole concept of the Parliament going there was very much seen differently.
David, I cannot remember—were you on the Public Petitions Committee at that point?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That was the Oban one.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
As it happens, I sit on the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, which is entrusted with running the functional aspects of the Parliament. One of the groups that we hear from is the Parliament’s educational unit, which engages with schools. For the past few months, that unit has been involved in trying to understand how to reach the many schools that do not currently seek to participate with the Parliament. We get lots of educational groups coming to the Parliament—if you watch the chamber, you might see them in the lower section of the public gallery—but it is often the same schools that come every year. Lots of schools do not come.
Gillian, you said that that issue needs to be looked at in some detail. You talk about potential mentorships and internships—which can sometimes be controversial, because people feel that it is unpaid labour or whatever—and more competitions. However, you felt that the group in the Parliament that is currently looking at that is right to do so, because there is a need to think of different ways to encourage the active interest of young people.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That is a practical example of how it would make a difference.
Maria, you talked about plain and transparent language. I was struck that, in a way, you were also arguing that, even if we accept all the recommendations at face value, that should not in itself be the basis on which we proceed. Work will need to be done to understand whether people accept that and believe that those things will make the difference. Is that what you were trying to suggest?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Yes, but there is a distinction between that and potentially engaging with the parliamentary apparatus.
We will talk about cross-party groups later. I am interested in the importance that is attached to that. Of course, the Parliament does not really facilitate cross-party groups, so that might be something in the report that needs to be looked at again.
We will move on to the next section of the report, which is about how Parliament uses deliberative democracy. Our discussion on that will be led by Ronnie Paterson and John Sultman. Which of you will kick off?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
John Sultman referred to that a moment ago when I talked about a more detailed programme. Fair enough.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
That is a cautionary note. It suggests that we should not just blunder forward but think carefully about how we progress with the recommendations.
Ronnie, you seem to be the bus advocate. That idea has caught a certain amount of media attention. We will see what colleagues think about it. Do members have any thoughts?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Jackson Carlaw
Surely not!
