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 1234 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Languages Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Willie Rennie
My amendment 95 goes a little bit further than Ross Greer’s amendment 66, in that it stipulates action that needs to be taken by the Government, rather than simply requiring a review. The matter has been debated for a considerable period, and it is now time to make a decision on it. The institution tells me that it is ready, and other specialist institutions have been granted degree-awarding status already, including the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. That is why we want to go further and recommend action rather than simply a review.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
That is the headline; it is the only thing that I see from the briefing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
There is not a long-term commitment to the funding; it is limited. Does that mean that you still have the same problem of people not wanting to take up a position because the money is not there for the long term?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
No, I understand.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
It is additional to the reduced service, but not additional to what was there before.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
I get all that, but that does not explain the variation.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
But we then get a briefing that says that there has been “fantastic work” and “substantial progress”.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
There is a disconnect. When I met the care-experienced young people who came into the Parliament a few months ago, they were incandescent with rage. They thought that what was being said was all mumbo-jumbo and did not mean anything and that nothing was really changing, because their experiences were just the same as they were before. They felt let down and betrayed. However, the briefing that you have provided says that there has been “fantastic work” and “substantial progress”. That is a different world from what those people are experiencing.
We can take the whole family wellbeing fund as an example. Yes, £500 million is there, but it has been delayed—the money has not been able to get out the door. Why is that? Why has there not been a peep from you this morning about why the money has been delayed and why local authorities are not spending the money? Why have you not said, “This is what we’ve found, and we’re calling it out”? Why has there been nothing about that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
Laura Caven, given that there is a programme board, why is there such wide variation in local authorities’ performance? The Who Cares? Scotland report that was published this year showed a pretty stark picture. Why does that variation exist?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
The Promise (Staff Recruitment and Retention)
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Willie Rennie
For clarity, there is a requirement—an intention—for independent advocacy to be available in every local authority, but it is not. Why is it not available?
