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
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I will come at the issue from a slightly different direction, cabinet secretary, and perhaps get a more detailed answer to the point that the convener is making. To approach the issue from the bottom up, teachers we have spoken to in our evidence gathering have been clear that the impacts of the pandemic have been significant, and we have to recognise that. We also have the cost of living crisis. Teachers have also acknowledged that they now have a much clearer idea of what works in addressing the attainment challenge.
We have that as well as the funding and the Government providing direction. Looking at all that in the round, now that those foundations are in place, would it be reasonable to expect that, in the coming years—the next few years—we will begin to see further and quite significant progress?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Graeme Dey
What would you consider to be “recent”?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I want to be clear. Are you saying that the conversation about the proposals took place only last week, after they had become public?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Graeme Dey
My question is about the interaction and relationship between the office of the commissioner and the Scottish Government. From what you have said, there seems to be quite a lot of blue water between your position and that of the Government. Was there any discussion between the office of the commissioner and the Scottish Government while the regulations were being put together?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Graeme Dey
You mentioned the opportunity for the child to challenge, but surely that challenge would lie with the placing authority. The challenge ought to be between the child and their representatives and the placing authority, so it would not lie in Scotland, would it?
11:30Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Graeme Dey
It is in the context of local authorities seeing their role change considerably. Local authorities were the power in local education delivery.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I want to take us back to Oliver Mundell’s line of questioning. I apologise if I missed something, but surely there is an active role for Education Scotland in addressing that issue, given that you have a Scotland-wide remit and involvement in every collaborative. You talked about good practice in the Northern Alliance around rural and remote rural schools. Is there not a role for you guys to say to the other RICs, “Look, you have rural schools that would benefit from the amassed corporate knowledge that we have in Scotland, and we want to make sure that you are taking the needs of your rural schools into account.”?
I heard the words “intention” and “aspiration”, but I am more interested in practical application. If you are not already doing that, it would not require Government direction or a policy change. It strikes me that it is self-evident that that should be happening, if it is not happening already.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Graeme Dey
With respect, that still seems a bit vague. That is a self-evident thing to be doing in a proactive way. If there is a risk that some schools have fallen through the cracks and that is avoidable, we should avoid it.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Graeme Dey
I understand entirely how complicated the issue is, and I understand why your focus has been on supporting schools throughout the pandemic. However, in our evidence sessions, it has been said to us that there is an argument for a degree of re-baselining with regard to attainment, because of the impact of the pandemic.
So that we get a clearer picture, will you set out where we are now on attainment and the challenge as a result of the pandemic, set against where we were pre-pandemic? How would you quantify that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Graeme Dey
Yes—in terms of empowerment and local authorities’ direct control over the system. What was the landscape at the start and what is it now?
