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 1010 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
As do I, convener.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Yes. I should be clear that we do not want to stop local variation in how schools develop policies and tackle the attainment gap. At the end of the day, we are concerned about variation in outcomes. We are certainly not looking at a one-size-fits-all approach. Education Scotland is doing a great deal of work to provide universal support to all local authorities in Scotland, and it can give more targeted support to the local authorities that are most in need. It might do that by looking at the highest levels of poverty in an area or through dialogue with a local authority when it or Education Scotland has identified that more targeted support is needed. Intensive support can also be provided when we see limited progress.
It is key that Education Scotland is there for every local authority. It will support and work collaboratively with schools and local authorities, and it will challenge, when necessary, if we do not see the progress that we might have expected though the work.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The local authorities’ stretch aims need to be in by September. Obviously, once those are collated and we ensure that we have the correct information from local authorities, I would like to publish very soon after that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We would expect to see significant progress. The challenge that we have coming out of Covid is that the progress that was being made pre-pandemic has been impacted by Covid as teachers are working day in, day out to support children and young people through the impact of Covid. The entire purpose of having the refresh and making the changes that we have made is that we expect not only progress but accelerated progress compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
In the previous parliamentary session, we spent £750 million in total on the attainment challenge, and in this parliamentary session the figure is £1 billion.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The figures are available for what goes to local government and what goes to schools.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
With respect, I think I have said that poverty is one of the key challenges in Scotland, as in other countries, and that we have had a system that has perhaps been too top-down and has not empowered the workforce to take decisions that are right for them. That is one of the lessons that we have had to learn. In looking at what we need to improve on from the OECD report in 2015, building on the further encouragement in its latest report, it is about empowering a system and providing resources to that empowered system.
10:00Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The only way that the money could be put back would be if I took it off the local authorities that will be having it for the first time. If that is what the member is suggesting—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We absolutely have school and local authority plans and reports—they are a condition of the grant. However, it is for Education Scotland to collate the information. We would be happy to provide further advice after the meeting, but it is a condition of the grant that the schools or local authorities work with Education Scotland on the projects and, importantly, that they discuss what has worked and what has had the greatest impact. We also have the annual evaluation reports that look at a range of different expenditure. However, it is part of our empowerment agenda to empower headteachers to determine how to spend money, and our agencies are there to assist them to ensure that the money has been spent effectively and that other schools are learning from that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
—of the fact that it has produced reports that have endorsed curriculum for excellence and in which it has encouraged us to develop the way—
