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 2176 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Miles Briggs
It is about positive destinations, and whether the Government would look at reviewing both voluntary work and activity agreements in that context. The Government says that those are positive destinations—they can come to an end, but the Government thinks that those young people are in a positive destination.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge: Post-inquiry Scrutiny
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Miles Briggs
I have concerns about the possibility that, in Lothian, the Government’s target on waiting lists is being met only because people are being re-evaluated in order to remove them from those lists and send them to third sector services.
I want to move on, although I do not know whether the cabinet secretary can answer this point.
Meeting of the Parliament
Urgent Question
Meeting date: 12 March 2025
Miles Briggs
If the proposals go forwards, they will result in 20 per cent of the university staff losing their jobs. These concerns became apparent last November. Does the Government intend to be directly involved in the development of a recovery plan? Specifically, in relation to the £15 million that the Government has made available, are ministers looking to offer bridging loans for other organisations? We are seeing university after university come forward with financial difficulties. The Government will need to respond to that.
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 6 March 2025
Miles Briggs
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the potential impact on state schools of the United Kingdom Government’s decision to make independent schools liable for VAT, how it plans to use any Barnett consequential funding resulting from this decision to support state schools. (S6O-04395)
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 6 March 2025
Miles Briggs
This issue is becoming a growing concern in Edinburgh in particular. In a response to me, the cabinet secretary has said that, already, 79 pupils from the independent sector have enrolled in the state sector. Moreover, in response to the Education, Children and Young People Committee, she gave the detail that around 40 per cent of all pupils who attend independent schools in Scotland are in Edinburgh. If we finally get clarification from the UK Government on Barnett consequentials, will she commit to allocating 40 per cent of that funding to the City of Edinburgh Council, which is the council that will be most impacted?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Miles Briggs
On Monday evening, we met some young people who have navigated the system. We got some really good feedback on some of the reforms, which we will capture and put on the record.
Given the conversation that we have just had, I will go back to the UCAS application process. On Monday, a suggestion was put to us on self-identification. Does the UCAS application form provide an opportunity to improve and broaden out the ability to self-identify early on? A number of people said that they did not think that it was fair to use SIMD20 as the measurement. They thought that taking a case-by-case approach, broadening it out and using school feedback on individuals would be far better. What are your thoughts on using the application process to do that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Miles Briggs
Going back to John Mason’s point, some of the young people whom we spoke to on Monday evening referred to the UCAS application form. Although they do not tick boxes on that form, could there be boxes to enable them to do so, to perhaps passport them to a system in which they need not constantly repeat their stories? They felt that stigmatisation was almost built into the system. Do you have any thoughts on that? How could the issue be addressed at the very starting point, when people are applying for a course?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Miles Briggs
It was about the UCAS application form. There is a “care experienced” box for people to tick, but there are other characteristics that could be identified at the very starting point—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Miles Briggs
With that in mind and given the data that institutions are providing to you, how many institutions across Scotland do you have concerns around? How many are likely to see a financial deficit? We are finding out about the deficits only when the institutions decide to make an announcement, whereas actions could be taken and more conversation and scrutiny could be taking place.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Widening Access to Higher Education
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Miles Briggs
This all started with the University of Dundee, but last week, we heard about the concerns that were being sent around University of Edinburgh staff with regard to its financial situation. Have other institutions approached you, either formally or informally, to express concern about where they are? What is your current assessment of where university finances sit?
