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 1884 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
That is helpful. Andrew Burns, can we hear your thoughts and reflections?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
That is helpful. I am pleased that you mentioned community wealth building. Perhaps David Hammond can add to that—he might have further thoughts on that from his experience at North Ayrshire Council.
I will go to Silke Isbrand next and then David Hammond, unless David wants to come in now.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
Will Silke Isbrand build on David Hammond’s answer by giving COSLA’s point of view on how we roll out good practice? We have heard some examples from David. How can we ensure that that learning does not just sit in Ayrshire but can be shared across Scotland?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
That was a very clear answer—thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
I will move on to procurement, but I am keen to ask Andrew Burns why adaptation is not given such priority. Can you put your finger—or your pen—on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
I have a question about the Scottish National Investment Bank—Louise or Andrew can indicate whether they are best placed to answer. It would be good if Stephen Smellie could follow up in writing to the committee because, last year, Unison published a report on decarbonising the public sector, and I am keen to hear what engagement has taken place with COSLA, the Accounts Commission and others on that report.
We have not heard about the role of the investment bank today. Can anyone speak to that point briefly?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
When I asked the question, I was making the assumption that everyone working in local government is part of the mission to reach net zero goals, given that we are trying to mainstream that—it is not just for those who have “green” or “climate” in their job title but is something that we are trying to embed.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
I have a question on procurement, which has been mentioned already. I come back to the issue of capacity, which we often hear about in broad terms. Stephen Smellie described a very lean model of local government, where we have shed a lot of staff over the years. Are we doing workforce plans across local government? Do we know exactly how many staff we would, in an ideal world, need to have in certain roles?
We talk a lot about workforce planning for the national health service, for example, but we do not always talk in great detail about what local government needs. I will come to Louise Marix Evans first, and then go round the table to find out whether that work is happening. It may be happening in England; perhaps Louise will have some good examples of that. I want to get a sense of what we actually need, and what kind of jobs we should train people for. For example, I am thinking about what Stephen Smellie said about a just transition, and how those agendas are linked.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Role of Local Government in Delivering Net Zero
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Monica Lennon
I have one question on procurement. We talked about that a little in the previous session, but we ran out of time. I am keen to hear from all our witnesses on how local authorities are using procurement to make further progress on the net zero goals. Do local authority procurement rules allow for a focus on carbon savings? If there is time, perhaps someone could touch on how that is helping local economies and small businesses. I am not sure who is best to go first, but I see Councillor Macgregor waving, so I will come to her.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Monica Lennon
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports of increasing hidden hunger due to the cost of living crisis, what action it is taking to address school meals debt and expand access to universal free school meals. (S6O-01343)
