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 1347 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Does anyone else wish to comment?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning. I thank the witnesses for giving their time to come and answer our questions. As the deputy convener said, if you watched our first evidence session this morning, you will know roughly where we will be going in the next few minutes. I will start with the general question that I asked earlier, and I ask Gill Westwood and Alison Gillies to respond first. Is it a problem in financial terms to have different definitions? Would it be easier to start with one definition? What do you see as a solution?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I want to pursue with Alison Gillies her role in getting people the benefits that they are entitled to. Are there passported benefits that people get if they fall under one definition of kinship care but not another? Is the situation the same across the United Kingdom? That might go beyond your experience; if it does, stop me. However, is the situation in Scotland the same as that in England and Wales?
Obviously, Social Security Scotland has just got up and running and is still fairly new. From your early experience of the new agency, is it following the same approach to definitions, or does it see kinship carers as one group?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
That is helpful. If no other witness wants to add anything, I will move on. My next questions are, first, for COSLA.
The independent care review, which refers to the Promise, was commissioned back in 2017 and reported in 2020. What progress has been made on the reforms that were outlined? What are the major things that we need to pick up on and take forward more quickly?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I am referring to kinship care.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Some of you might have heard the questions that we put to the previous panel, and the questions that I ask now will be similar.
I will pick up the issue of the overreliance on the central belt to accommodate people. Does anyone have a view on whether there should be distribution across the whole of Scotland? If so, what are some of the challenges with regard to that? If you do not have anything particularly new to say, you can just agree with previous comments, but it would be interesting to know your opinion on whether services that individuals need, such as legal or health services, can be provided across Scotland, or whether is it better to keep the provision within a small number of local authorities. That question goes to anyone who wants to jump in.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Again, in the interests of time, rather than receiving a verbal update, it would be helpful to get information in writing on my question. When it comes to the Syrian refugees who came into the country, have any lessons—whether positive or negative—been learned? In particular, is there anything that we can learn to do differently?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning and thank you for coming to give evidence. I also thank you for your written evidence, which has already been really helpful. I will start with a question for Graham O’Neill. In the previous session of Parliament, we did some work on the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers across the whole of Scotland and there were issues with regard to housing and, in particular, access to legal advice outwith the central belt. In principle, do you think that it is a good idea for individuals not only to be placed in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Edinburgh but to be found accommodation and support in other parts of Scotland as well? If so, how could we do that in a more effective way?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
That is helpful background, Graham. I will direct this question back to you, but I ask for a briefer answer. If the policy that was announced by the Home Secretary last week is carried out, is there enough appropriate housing in places such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland to accommodate those individuals? I know that Edinburgh often struggles to give any support because it does not have the accommodation. Across Scotland, do we have that accommodation or will we need more new builds and other properties that come on to the market?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I have two quick questions. It might be more helpful for you to get back to us in writing on the first one, because it will be quite a long answer. We have talked about the Afghan resettlement scheme. Looking back a little, my understanding is that the work that was done by the Scottish and UK Governments, local authorities and the third sector around the Syrian refugees who came here was very successful. What lessons have we learned from that and how can we implement them?
My second question seeks clarification. There seems to be some confusion about whether children who are refugees or asylum seekers are allowed to have bus passes under the new scheme. Does anyone have any information on whether the free bus passes are available to children in Scotland with refugee or asylum seeker status?
