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 3584 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
I was asking that question on the basis of comments made by Bill Wright, who was on the previous panel of witnesses. He made the point that people making complaints were almost seen to be the enemy. That point came across very strongly. I am sorry—I have butted in. I will bring in Paul Sweeney.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
Please do not apologise. We have asked you for your story, which you have put very powerfully.
Can I come to you, Marie?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
I will bring in Irene Oldfather, because she has to leave after this.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
Thank you. Emma Harper has a question and then we will have a final question from Sandesh Gulhane.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
Our final question is from Sandesh Gulhane.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
I am sorry for going into that specific area, but it is an example of where a patient safety commissioner might have made a difference. I will leave it there.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
Thank you. I come to Fraser Morton.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
I am sorry to intervene, but Charlie Bethune talked about valproate in the earlier session. That is a specific example. He flagged up that that is still being prescribed to pregnant women.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
We will probably come to that. I just wanted to give everyone the opportunity to put down their general thoughts on a patient safety commissioner and to set out their particular history in that regard.
I will pass on to my colleagues, who have a number of questions.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Gillian Martin
I would like to bring other members in. I am sorry that I need to curtail the questioning a bit. I will bring you back in later, Paul, but Evelyn Tweed has a question on that issue. I remind people of the time—we are halfway through our evidence session and I would like to give most of the speaking time to the witnesses.
