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 1291 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
Does anyone else want to come in on that point, or are you in also in the dark on software systems?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
Is it your understanding that the same software providers will provide systems across the UK, so that the systems are compatible? We are not necessarily talking about different providers being chosen separately. I ask that question because I know from a former life on the Health and Sport Committee that different national health service boards chose different IT systems, which meant that they could not communicate, which is why health IT in Scotland is so bad.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
On a wider issue with the Scottish digital strategy, on which you have all touched, are any local authorities likely to do something different, given the different contracts that we have discussed and how those sometimes stretch into other parts of our local government IT systems? Will the strategy resolve the issue and provide for a single system that allows communication not only with Government, but among local authorities?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
That is helpful. I hope that, given the pressures on planning departments and in relation to access to planning specialists, there might be an opportunity for councils to share decision making and to share people who are in high demand for planning. There might be opportunities, there.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
Thank you.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Miles Briggs
I am happy enough with the instrument, but I am a bit concerned about the lack of data on which councils it would apply to. I wonder whether we could request that data and, indeed, look to gather it in the future, given that, with the suspension of the Scottish Government’s supersponsor scheme, councils might be facing a higher burden as a result of council tax not being collected.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Rent Freeze and Evictions Moratorium
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Miles Briggs
Before I hand back to the convener, it is worth my while to put on the record that, last week, we passed the Scottish Social Housing Charter: November 2022, in looking at how tenants’ situation could be improved. The bill will, obviously, bypass that for associations and councils, so that work to give tenants that voice is now being put to one side.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Rent Freeze and Evictions Moratorium
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Miles Briggs
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We have heard everyone talk about unintended consequences of the bill. Is there any international example of a rent freeze that has not resulted in fewer private lets, a slump in the building of affordable homes, increases in future rents and more homelessness? I will start with Rhiannon Sims.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Rent Freeze and Evictions Moratorium
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Miles Briggs
I know that Ireland, which has put in place a similar scheme, has had a 30 per cent increase in homelessness. Does anyone else on the panel want to come in on consequences that they are aware of in different countries?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Rent Freeze and Evictions Moratorium
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Miles Briggs
I have a very short final question. With regard to the 0 per cent cap, which is what is being proposed initially, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations suggested that on average the increase across your members was likely to be 3.2 per cent. In the future, when the cap is lifted by the Government, what level of increase will you expect for your members, to recoup what will be a significant hit on finances for providing day-to-day running of the organisation, repairs and future 10-year plans around affordable housing developments? I start with Aaron Hill, because I specifically mentioned your organisation.
