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 1025 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
That will all be from the teacher census, in essence. The census gives the national statistics on teacher numbers. The numbers on pupil support assistants are not published in December; as I referred to previously, they are published in March. When you look at where the baseline is for each of the years and where the numbers that I quoted came from, you will see that those are from the teacher census.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
In the letter that I have just issued on teacher numbers, I recognise that pupil numbers have decreased, and are expected to decrease in some local authority areas while some others will experience an increase. It is clear that, in certain local authorities, it would be possible keep the pupil teacher ratio the same with a reduction in teachers. That is something that local authorities could look at.
However, the challenge that we face is that we also want to improve attainment, and it is clear—the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s research supports this—that teacher numbers and teacher quality have an impact on attainment. Therefore, a decreasing pupil roll is not necessarily a reason to reduce teacher numbers, particularly if an authority is considering how it can support pupils from the poorest communities or pupils who, for whatever reason, are struggling in school. Teachers can be used in different ways.
The pupil teacher ratio is important, but so, too, is how the overall teaching workforce is used. When it comes to expenditure, whether pupil numbers go up or go down has an impact on the funding that goes to local authorities.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
When it comes to the challenge authorities, parts of my letter to local authorities recognise that we might need to take into account exceptional circumstances. I mentioned recruitment and retention earlier; we would take cognisance, too, of the changes to challenge authorities.
I fully appreciate the difficult decisions that local authorities have to make. I said in my opening statement that local authorities have very difficult decisions to make, just as the Scottish Government did as we put our budget together. We have—this is a joint understanding—a desire to improve attainment. I have yet to see any suggestion that reductions in teacher numbers or pupil support assistants would help to close the poverty-related attainment gap.
If we want to get those education fundamentals in place, we have to take the decisions. If we have a joint understanding about why money has been put into a budget, it is not surprising that local government would wish to provide further challenge to local authorities to ensure that that money was spent in that way.
Local authorities have to make very difficult decisions on other areas of their expenditure. However, to go back to the point that we made earlier when we were discussing the budget that was set yesterday, the Deputy First Minister introduced additional expenditure for local government of more than £700 million, which is a substantial real-terms increase. The decisions that we have taken allowed that to happen.
As I mentioned earlier, no costed proposals came forward from other parties to suggest how that funding could be increased.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The Government target remains at 3,500 by the end of the year. We have to work with local government colleagues once budgets are set to analyse further projections in-year, and we also need to look at what the ITE number will be. That is not a one-stage process but an iterative process that will go on throughout the year. The Government’s commitment to those numbers remains.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Because we will work closely and carefully with local authorities in-year, there will be a clear understanding from them about what will happen and the implications of that. It is for local authorities to then weigh up whether it would be sensible to carry on strategically cutting teacher numbers because they will know the implications. I do not think that we will get to that situation because, through the collaboration that we will have in-year, they will be very clear about the implications of that and how it might not make financial sense for a council to do it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Well, you are looking at a hypothetical situation in the future.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The money is in the budget for next year.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
It now has to be found to be spent on teachers’ pay.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I will have to find that money in year to assist with the pay offer. I go back to the point that I have made all along in the teachers’ pay dispute that, if we increase the capacity for local government to improve its offer as the employer, the money needs to be found and that is not without consequence. That money will be found from the education and skills budget.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2023-24
Meeting date: 22 February 2023
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Well, I will have to analyse that and make those decisions in year to ensure that the education and skills budget balances. Clearly, though, Mr Kerr, you have been demanding that I take action to improve the pay offer. I have made it clear to you every single time that the only way in which that can be done is by the money being increased—
