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 1156 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
Good morning. I am interested in the issue of duplication of effort and the capacity to obtain certain data that Sue Webber talked about. Obviously more data have been gathered during the pandemic, but have you had to pause any data collection? In some of the work that I have been doing, I have found people to be a bit fed up of feeling like hamsters on a wheel in having to collect data, data and more data without actually knowing what the data are being used for. Has there been a pause in collecting some data, and does more work need to be done to ensure that people on the ground know why the data are being gathered and what they are being used for?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
Perhaps Chris Mackie could start.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
There is sometimes a disconnect between what the Scottish Government wants to implement and local delivery. I am interested to know whether there are barriers in local authorities, health boards, third sector organisations or IJBs. We know that there are early adopters and that there are folk who arenae. Are there any disconnects that hinder successful implementation of what the Scottish Government wants to take forward?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
I have a quick question about a patient’s journey through the whole system. Would that be supported by giving everyone access to the clinical portal? In that respect, I am also thinking about social prescribing. Could referrals to, for example, men’s sheds or the third sector be part of the data processing, too?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
It is important not to imply that there is a deficit in public understanding and knowledge. We need to look at the positives. Because of the pandemic, the public are probably extremely well educated about clinical vulnerabilities and so on.
What learning will we take forward from what has been initiated in data collection during the pandemic, and how will we do that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
Does Ed Humpherson want to come in on that?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary about Scottish Government policy versus local delivery. Are there any barriers in health boards, IJBs, local authorities or even the third sector that might hinder the successful implementation of the Scottish Government’s programmes? How is the digital capability being kept up to support people whose first language is not English?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
The information that is available to the public is fabulous, and I have been using the Public Health Scotland dashboard to better inform myself. I am interested in what we can do digitally to support people’s health literacy if we are going to encourage people to take better care of themselves outside of the pandemic. How do we support the development of a more health-conscious public?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care
Meeting date: 23 November 2021
Emma Harper
A number of witnesses have mentioned the once-for-Scotland approach. That seems to fit some areas, whereas other areas need a tailored approach. The Datix Cloud IQ system is a cloud-based reporting mechanism for recording adverse events and safety concerns and for looking at quality assurance and the improvement of care. Would that be a “Once for Scotland” approach, whereas the ALISS approach seems to involve directing people to, for example, specific social prescribing in their health board or local authority area?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Session 6 Priorities
Meeting date: 16 November 2021
Emma Harper
I have a quick supplementary question. There has been a lot of work done on tackling stigma; it is now less stigmatising for a person to say that they have anxiety or a mental health disorder. Has that contributed to the challenges? Has the fact that more people are coming out and saying that they have struggles affected the ability to tackle the issue? The Government has done a lot of work on support for mental health in that way.
