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 893 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
I fully recognise that a balance has to be struck in these circumstances. Megan Farr is right when she talks about the risk of imparting information that is then shared on social media. However, do you not recognise that, in some of these cases, there is a sense that a package of measures is being put around the alleged perpetrator, but the victim is left wondering how they can be confident that their needs are being met? When MSPs who pick up those cases for their constituents try to get information, they are told, “We can’t give you that, because it is about measures that we have taken in relation to the alleged perpetrator.” Do you not accept that it sometimes appears that the victims and their families are forgotten in all of this?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Absolutely.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
That is what we are here for—exactly.
I want to explore another aspect. If our witnesses watched our earlier evidence session, they will have heard that we considered inconsistencies in the experiences of 16 and 17-year-olds under the current arrangements, depending on whether they go through the children’s hearings system or the criminal justice system.
We explored an example in which two individuals of a similar age commit the same offences but one is dealt with through one process and the other person goes through the other. The first one, who goes through the children’s hearings system, could have been dealt with and have moved on to a much more positive outlook before the one who is going through the criminal justice system has even attended court, because of the delays. That is an obvious example, but are there other inconsistencies in the current situation that you want to make us aware of?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Do you accept that there is a balance to be struck between the need to provide environments that will help to rehabilitate and assist those young people and giving the public the confidence that, depending on the offences that they have committed, they are in genuinely secure accommodation?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
My final question will perhaps engage the other two witnesses in the discussion. Recently, the SCRA and the Procurator Fiscal Service did research into children aged 12 to 15 who were involved in offending and were referred to the children’s reporter and the procurator fiscal. To what extent did that indicate a strong link between children who come into conflict with the law and the degrees of adversity, trauma, poverty and loss that they have experienced? We can also take account of your personal experience of dealing with such situations beyond the research.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Thank you. I just wanted to get that on the record.
Will the witnesses outline for us how a reporter currently decides whether a child or young person should be referred to the children’s hearings system? Can you give us a feel for the thought process around that? Will that change in any way as a result of the bill? If so, how?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Even with that framework, I guess that there is always a degree of subjectivity in the decision making that takes place. It must leave you open to accusations of a lack of consistency on occasions—perhaps unfairly, given everything that you have to take account of.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Before I move on to my questions, I want to go back to what Kenny Donnelly just said. What about a scenario in which two people of the same age commit the same offence but one is dealt with under the children’s hearings system while the other is referred to the criminal justice system? It can take up to two years for the latter to be dealt with, because of court delays, by which time the other person will have been dealt with, will perhaps have been rehabilitated and will have a more positive outlook. Is that not the greatest inconsistency here?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
I do not disagree with that. Perhaps I did not make myself clear. We often find that victims and their families are looking for reassurance and want to know what measures have been taken to protect them, but it is impossible to get information on that. The ground for that is that that information cannot be shared, because those matters pertain to the alleged perpetrator. That exacerbates the sense of concern of victims and their families. That is what I am getting at.
I do not have the answer; I simply wanted to get a sense that you recognise that that is an issue.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 March 2023
Graeme Dey
Thank you.
