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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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Emma Harper
I am seeking assurances on how you will give farmers the confidence that the SSI will not fail to support less favoured areas and new entrant farmers. How can we convey that the Government’s interest is in continuity, stability and certainty—all the words that we have been hearing—to deal with the Brexit cliff edge? What is the best way to convey to farmers that the regulations will just continue the current situation so that there is no cliff edge?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
I am thinking about what you said about the variation in pay across Scotland, as well as the variation in education, skills, expected competencies and delivery of services on the ground. Do people know what social workers do? Would the national social work agency, as proposed in the bill, help to establish a standard approach to what social workers do across Scotland? My understanding is that the aim of the agency is to create equivalent terms and conditions, salaries, expectations, skills, competencies and education across Scotland.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
This is a framework bill, and you are keen to ensure that further regulation and statutory instruments are good at defining the role of the social work agency and the responsibilities of the chief social worker, so that, as we develop the regulations down the line, everybody is clear on roles and responsibilities.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
It has been quite interesting to hear the different opinions so far. I want to pick up on what Frank Reilly said about social workers leaving in droves.
Would having a national social work agency and creating a national social work lead help to address that in terms of looking at leadership, at education and at flattening the hierarchy on the ground to make sure that social workers know who the leadership is? In my experience as a registered nurse in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, some of the nurses did not know who the chief exec was or even who the chief nurse was. Would a national social work agency help to address some of those issues?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
I will be brief. I come directly to Stephen Morgan. You said that Feeley made 53 recommendations, 11 of which are directly about the national care service, which is 20 per cent. One of those was to have a minister with social care in their title. We have that now—Maree Todd is the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport.
Are you saying that we can just get on with doing stuff and that we cannot wait on a bill? We are working towards a bill right now. Should we continue to do what we can now, while we are waiting? The bill is a framework bill, and further legislation will come down the line.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
That brings me to my next question. If there was a national social work agency, local authorities, health boards and care boards would have to work together, so they wouldnae be working in silos. Could we do something different to what is proposed? What would the chief social worker do to eliminate silos?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
I have a couple of questions about the creation of a national chief social work adviser and a national social work agency. The Care Inspectorate seems to support the approach that is being taken by the Scottish Government, saying:
“We believe placing the role of the National Social Work Agency and National Chief Social Work Adviser on a statutory footing recognises the unique role of social work and will ensure it is given due parity and prominence within the National Care Service.”
I know that Social Work Scotland will be giving evidence as part of the next panel of witnesses, but I am interested in your views on those proposals. What role do you envisage those bodies playing in support of the profession and social work services?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
Would a national social work agency address issues that the previous panel of witnesses raised about how we need to work not just with social workers but with allied health professionals, occupational therapists and physiotherapists? We had a conversation about reablement the last time that we spoke. How would a national social work agency help to develop better partnerships and relationships with our allied health professionals?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
Would that be the difference between an executive agency and a non-departmental public body?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 24 September 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning. There are 25 pages of amendments to the bill. In section 17, in part 4, chapter 2 of the marked-up version of the bill, there are a load of subsections about membership of the board. I want to pick up Keir Greenaway’s point about people who should be represented on the board. One of the subsections refers to an individual being
“appointed on the basis that the Scottish Ministers believe that the individual will make an important contribution to the Board’s work on account of the individual’s being, or having been, a carer within the meaning given”
by the relevant section. Therefore, there is already a proposal for carers to be part of the membership of the board.
I am interested in the fact that this is a framework bill with a co-design process, on which work has started already. Does the membership of the board need to be clarified further? Should the bill be amended to state that the board should include a union representative, for instance?
