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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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Yes.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Do members of the committee agree to take that action?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Our next continued petition, PE1953, which was lodged by Roisin Taylor-Young, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review education support staff roles in order to consider urgently raising wages for education support staff across the primary and secondary sector to £26,000 per annum; to increase the hours of the working week for educational support staff from 27.5 to 35 hours; to allow educational support staff to work on personal learning plans, with teachers taking part in multi-agency meetings; to require educational support staff to register with the Scottish Social Services Council; and to pay educational support staff monthly.
We last considered the petition at our meeting on 31 May 2023, when we agreed to seek an update on the Bute house agreement commitment to explore options
“for the development of an accredited qualification and registration programme for Additional Support Needs assistants”.
In her recent response, the cabinet secretary stated that the intention had been for ministers to consider a report in autumn 2023 but that the work had been delayed due to competing priorities in the portfolio. The report is now due to be published in the first quarter of 2024.
The cabinet secretary’s response also reported that officials have engaged with counterparts in England and Wales on their approaches to its work, and that they hosted two online workshops in September 2023.
Do members have any comments or suggestions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Are members agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Our next continued petition is PE2016, which was lodged by Gordon McPherson. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to raise awareness of the risk factors, signs and symptoms of thrombosis.
We last considered the petition at our meeting on 14 June 2023. At that meeting, we heard that recent research by The BMJ shows that, after a Covid-19 infection, there is an increased risk of deep vein thrombosis for up to three months, of pulmonary embolism for up to six months and of a bleeding event for up to two months after infection.
With that in mind, we agreed to seek a view as to whether it is necessary to undertake more work to raise awareness of thrombosis. The Scottish Government’s response stated that it is considering the issues that were highlighted by the research and is looking at what further awareness messaging can be undertaken via social media.
The Government’s response explains that, in the parliamentary question answer that is referred to by the petitioner in previous submissions, the figures include all conditions that are all or mostly due to a blood clot forming in a particular location, including both arteries and veins. This therefore includes some of the most common causes of death, including myocardial infarction and stroke. The data that is used in response to the petition reflects clots forming in the veins and includes instances where those clots travel and cause pulmonary embolisms.
The petitioner’s recent submission notes that his petition covers thrombosis as a whole, rather than specific subdivisions. He states that the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network has worked on the guideline that highlights the link between Covid-19 and blood clots, but that no action has been taken by the Scottish Government to raise awareness.
Do members have any comments or suggestions?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Does the committee agree with Mr Ewing’s recommendations?
Members indicated agreement.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Our next continued petition is PE2018, which was lodged by Helen Plank on behalf of Scottish Swimming, is on recognising the value of swimming pools and providing financial relief to help to keep pools open. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to help to keep our swimming pools and leisure centres open by providing financial investment for pools.
I welcome another colleague, Tim Eagle, to the committee. We are pleased to see him, as a new addition to the Parliament, take an interest in the public petitions process. Welcome, Mr Eagle.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Our final continued petition is PE1906, on investigating options for moving and reducing the impact of central Glasgow section of the M8, which was lodged by Peter Kelly on behalf of @ReplacetheM8. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent feasibility study to investigate scenarios for reducing the impact of the M8 between the M74 and Glasgow cathedral including, specifically, its complete removal and the repurposing of the land.
We are joined in our consideration of the petition by MSP colleague Paul Sweeney. A warm welcome to you, Mr Sweeney.
We last considered the petition at our meeting on 31 May 2023. The petitioner has provided a submission that notes actions that his group wishes the committee to follow up on, including their ask for an independent study to be commissioned.
Councillor Angus Millar has written to the committee on behalf of Glasgow City Council, confirming that a strategic and operational approach being taken by the local authority. Councillor Millar highlights a paper that sets out the council’s progress, the actions taken and proposed next steps. An extract from that paper is available in the papers accompanying the petition and breaks down a number of issues the council wishes to explore in the short, medium and long term. It outlines engagement between the council and Transport Scotland, and notes that an annual progress meeting between the council and Transport Scotland officers was agreed to, over and above interim discussions. It is also proposed that an action plan be prepared to cover the council projects that interact with the M8 between junctions 15 and 22. That plan would work to identify the role of Transport Scotland in those interventions, to help facilitate collaboration and progress.
Before I invite members to comment, I ask Paul Sweeney whether he has any comments.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
Mr Choudhury, are you willing to go with the rest of the committee’s recommendations?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
David Torrance
I have just been told by the clerk that we can close the petition but also write to the Scottish Government to ask about additional funding. If members agree with that, I am more than happy to go with it. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
