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 1594 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes.
I have just one additional question on industrial relations. In seven of the past eight years, we have seen national strike action, which has sometimes come about because of individual educational disputes escalating and sometimes because of national bargaining disputes. Could each of you say briefly why disputes have so regularly escalated to national action? After all, there is no other sector in Scotland where we have seen national strike action almost every year in the past decade.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
I have a final brief question. Hugh Hall said that there had been a number of lessons-learned reports, the latest of which is still due a response from the Scottish Government. Are there particular points that you would like to see in that response? For example, would you like to see proposals for reforming the NJNC or for wider change in the sector?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
It is harder to disentangle that issue, but the same debate keeps coming up about whether it is an appropriate model of governance.
Before I ask a couple of general questions about wider industrial relations issues, I want to ask specifically about local dispute resolution processes. A couple of years ago, there was a national joint negotiating committee agreement for each institution to agree a local dispute resolution procedure. At this point, I think that most, but not all, colleges have one. Before we go any further, therefore, I just want to ensure that my questions are being properly directed. Can each of you confirm whether your college has an agreed local dispute resolution process with your union?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
Is there anything—
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
That was very efficient.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
I was really interested in what Hugh Hall said a couple of moments ago about the relationship between Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council. Recently there was a pretty scathing report about how dysfunctional that has been. You seemed to be suggesting a merger of those two organisations because of that overlap, which would create quite a large public body.
To clarify, are there specific functions of SDS that you think would sit better within the SFC, or vice versa? Or, are you proposing that both organisations and all their responsibilities—everything from the national careers service to apprenticeships and university and college funding—should sit under one public body?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
Do you have a timescale for when you hope to reach a resolution?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
Can I briefly follow up something that Derek Smeall said?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
I am interested in your experience as an NJNC negotiator. Would you change anything about the structure of the NJNC, accepting that the Government’s response to the lessons learned exercise has yet to be published?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 20 September 2022
Ross Greer
I am sure that many MSPs would empathise with that, in light of their experience of trying to attract staff to work in this building.
I have a final question on which I would like to hear everyone’s views. There has been a lot of discussion, which is playing out on Twitter and in newspaper columns today, about what more action the Scottish Government could take right now to help people through the cost of living crisis. There seems to be a tension, or perhaps a misunderstanding, around what can be done in future financial years, particularly around tax. Today, another newspaper column says that the Scottish Government should immediately increase income tax on higher earners to pay for something such as free school meals.
Obviously, the Scotland Act says that we cannot do that. If that decision were to be made, it could only apply from 1 April onwards. Is the discussion that is taking place around in-year revisions to the Scottish budget sufficiently well informed? Is a substantive debate taking place in our public sphere, or are people still coming at the issue with completely different levels of understanding of what the current fiscal arrangements allow and what they do not allow?
