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
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The Government has provided a fair overall settlement for education and local government. I encourage Mr Rennie to put forward, perhaps for the first year, costed budget alternatives and to say whether he would like to take the money from health, justice, transport or our work on net zero. We have set out in the budget where the money is going. If Mr Rennie wishes more money to be provided, he has to say where it will come from, given that the entire budget has been spent. He can demand that more action be taken, but he has to suggest where the money will come from if he is not satisfied with the Government’s budget proposals.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We had the equity audit, which the Government published, and we have exceptionally regular discussions at the Covid-19 education recovery group—CERG—on the issue. The national improvement framework report that was published in December included evidence on the issue, too. Clearly, there were some gaps in what could be collated for that report because of the impact of Covid, but that is certainly one of the key areas where we will also be able to see the impact of the pandemic. We also keep in regular discussion with our international council of education advisers, and we learn what we can from that. I have regular contact with my teachers panel and the Scottish education council to ensure that, in the interim periods between the official statistics being delivered or NIFs being published, we discuss the impact of issues regularly with stakeholders.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The reason why the material was not collated as part of the work around the NIF is that it was not possible to do that during the period of the pandemic.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We have looked carefully at what schools can publish, given the implications of Covid for that. I hope that the committee will appreciate that there were understandable reasons why some of the material could not be delivered. Of course, again, we have the material from our stakeholders that is being looked at in this regard, as well as material from the Scottish Qualifications Authority that relates to secondary schools.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Convener, you have frozen on my screen. I do not know whether the problem is at my end or at the committee’s end. I do not know whether anyone else on the committee can hear me, but I have lost the convener.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Certainly.
As I was trying to say to the convener, we have more teachers now than we have had since 2008. We have seen that addition in the teacher census that came out. We know how much funding we put in—that is the £145.5 million—and we know how many teachers that should employ. As I said, that is 2,500 teachers and 500 support staff. That is what I am looking to see a change in.
As I reiterated to the convener, there may be changes to that, because local authorities may decide to vary the numbers between teachers and support staff. We cannot put an exact figure on that, because we are not dictating to local authorities how the money should be spent. Quite rightly, it is up to local authorities to determine local need.
That is certainly the aspect that I am looking at. I know what funding went in, and I know what that funding can produce. We will keep a close eye on the figures to ensure that that is what the funding actually delivers.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
A recent survey by the Educational Institute of Scotland showed that this has been an exceptionally difficult time not only for teachers but for other school staff, too. This is a very difficult time for everyone as we go through the pandemic. Teachers have had to adapt very quickly to what has been happening, which has been exceptionally difficult. I pay tribute to them. We have taken teacher wellbeing very seriously and have invested £2 million in that. We will continue to ensure that there is support from Education Scotland for teachers, because we recognise that this is a very difficult time for them.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
It is a bit early for us to be able to determine the impact that the money has had, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation. When the figures have been updated through the teacher census, we will be able to determine whether that is happening.
That is certainly the clear wish and encouragement from Government and, to be fair, local authorities are picking up on that, but the figures will not show up until the next teacher census.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I am certainly happy to take that away and see what can be done. It is one of the challenges that the education budget presents. A lot of the education budget sits within the local government budget, as well as in other Government portfolios, most obviously the finance and economy portfolio, which particularly impacts on skills. I would be happy to report back to the committee on that and to point it in the direction of that spend if that would be helpful, convener.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We are keen to gather the correct data. In many ways, this points back to some of the initial points that the convener made about gathering the correct data so that we know what the outcomes are from the educational spend that goes in.
The short-life working group is a response to the recommendations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which said that we needed to see what more could be done to consider the other three capacities within curriculum for excellence, on which we do not currently have the same level of data. We have a wide range of other surveys, such as the health and wellbeing survey, that paint a picture of young people’s progress.
I am sure that the committee will come back to this area at some point in the future. I am happy to provide an update on the work around data that is being done in the short-life working group and on where it is going once we reach a point at which decisions and recommendations have been made.
