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 1881 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Graham Simpson
To follow up on that, you said that you had not met the Scottish Funding Council, but I presume that you asked for a meeting.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 30 November 2023
Graham Simpson
I am happy to leave it there, convener.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
How, though, do you ensure that there is nobody else in the room? We can see you, but the background is blurred, and I have no idea whether there is anyone else with you and, perhaps, passing you notes on what to say. We just do not know, do we? How do you ensure, with a young person, that there is nobody else there?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
You do not eliminate the risk. However, the risk would be virtually eliminated if a consultation was face to face. Do you accept that?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Good—I look forward to you re-looking at it in the Borders.
One problem that we have looked at in previous sessions is that, when you go to a GP, you have to make an appointment and explain your problem to someone who might not be medically qualified. That in itself can be a barrier. Having somewhere where you can just walk in and get help immediately would be a positive development. Good luck to you, Simon, as you look at that system again.
I will move on to data, which was a big area for criticism—I suppose that that is a fair word—in the report. A theme that comes up in a lot of reports from the Auditor General is the lack of data and the lack of quality data. The report states:
“Data is not available to determine how many people have severe and enduring mental health conditions in Scotland.
Information is not available to accurately assess demand for mental health support in primary care in Scotland, but it is likely that demand is high.”
Well, yes. The report goes on to say:
“In 2018, a survey of more than 1,000 GPs across England and Wales estimated that 41 per cent of appointments relate to mental health.”
Do you agree that data collection and, indeed, the quality of data should be improved? If you agree, are any of you tackling that?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
That is really interesting. You have described a system in which police are, I presume, not having to sit in accident and emergency for hours at a time.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
That is interesting. All the rest of you need to work with Richmond and do what he asks, then.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
I want to go back to Tracey McKigen’s answer to the previous question. When you are dealing with young people, in particular, and you are having online consultations, how do you ensure that there is nobody else in the room prodding them to say certain things?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
I will try to keep the conversation going, as always, convener.
In my questions over the past couple of weeks, I have been exploring gaps in the system as it relates to the police. I am sure that this is the same for our colleagues in Wales, but the police tell us that they spend the majority of their time—up to 80 per cent—dealing with people with mental health problems rather than with crime. They are called out to people with mental health problems; that is what they are doing for up to 80 per cent of the time.
There should be no such thing as out of hours when we are talking about mental health, but there is. The services of some of the people who are in this meeting shut down at certain times, and perhaps that is part of the problem. Whole squads of police are sat in hospital accident and emergency departments with people, waiting for them to be seen.
I have heard that, in Lanarkshire, which the convener and I represent, police officers have spent entire shifts sat in hospitals with people. The police have had to introduce what I think is an informal system with NHS Lanarkshire that means that, if they have to do that, they pick up the phone and say, “Look, can you help us out and start moving people through the system?” Does anyone have a better system for working with the police?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 23 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Is anyone aware of anything similar elsewhere in Scotland?
