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 1106 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
One of the strengths of that system is that, once again, it has demonstrated the trust that we can have in our teachers and their professional judgment. It was a difficult time for teachers. The alternative certification model was challenging for them to undertake but, as has been demonstrated, it was the best system that could be in place in an emergency situation.
One of the lessons that I see when I look back on the situation is that our teaching workforce, using its teacher judgment to demonstrate our young people’s success, brought its professionalism to the fore. That has been critical because, at a point when examinations were not possible because of public health measures, we required a system that was credible and fair. Teachers have absolutely delivered on that, and I again take the opportunity to thank them for that.
09:45Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Just to be clear, the intention, as I understand it, was that the report would be out before Fiona Robertson’s appearance at the committee, but the commission required a change in date. That decision was made by the commission. It could not be changed by the SQA.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
If that is a question that the convener wishes to ask the Deputy First Minister later on, he will have the opportunity to get into the matter in much more detail than I can now. I am sure that the Deputy First Minister would be delighted to answer.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
It is not an afterthought. When the Feeley review was established, there was a clear need and drive for it, given some of the issues that have been shown up through the pandemic. Adult care services are obviously included in the proposed national care service, but we need to check whether we can provide consistent delivery of services to our most vulnerable children and young people. We must also acknowledge that a number of children and young people who have contact with social work services do so because they have an adult family member who receives support from adult services, so the question is whether it makes sense for those services to be more seamless than they would be if they were separate.
It is not an afterthought by any means. The comments from Fiona Duncan and others are challenging us to ensure that there are no unintended consequences or gaps and challenging us on how best we can deliver on the promise. That is the right challenge to give to Government and we will consider it closely as we move out of consultation and analyse the recommendations from different bodies, which might have very different opinions on the matter.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The whole point of the promise was that it was never going to be an overnight challenge on which the Government could say no, we are not delivering it, or yes, we are delivering it. We are making good progress on it.
The work that the Government has taken on in relation to the promise has ensured that we are considering matters differently. It was never something that could be done overnight, but we are making good progress towards delivery. We are absolutely determined to deliver for every child and young person who is part of the care system. It is our obligation to do just that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 6 October 2021
Shirley-Anne Somerville
It is important that we have data. Is Mr Rennie saying that we should not have any national data to allow us to decide whether there is an issue with variation of outcomes? He is entitled to that viewpoint.
