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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 2416 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Community empowerment: Covid-19 update”
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
Colin Beattie
I have a question for Anna Fowlie. Given that the number of public bodies that are seeking that sort of engagement and feedback is limited, is there any indication that the ones that are seeking the feedback are using it in a positive way?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Community empowerment: Covid-19 update”
Meeting date: 25 November 2021
Colin Beattie
I am pleased that, in the course of the discussion, we are recognising the contribution that communities made during the pandemic and are continuing to make.
The Auditor General said that funding is all too often provided on an annual basis. The problem is that the Scottish Government is funded on an annual basis and does not have certainty about what its budget will be, and that uncertainty trickles down to other organisations that get funded by the Government and makes things a bit harder. I think that that is fairly common in the public sector these days—everything is short term.
I want to look forward a bit, because it is important that we do not lose the momentum that we have gained. Are public bodies now seeking feedback from communities on what has been learned from the pandemic? How are they doing that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Colin Beattie
Did you hear my initial question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Colin Beattie
We hear a lot about bottlenecks. Some of those are caused by Brexit, but others, we are told, are due to Covid and people restocking. Containers are in the wrong place and ships are in the wrong place and so on. When you think about it, it is logical that some of those bottlenecks must resolve themselves when places are fully stocked and the containers are back into their correct cycle of being exported and so on. How long do you think that will take? Which specific elements of the bottlenecks would you say are going to resolve themselves?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Colin Beattie
I am trying to get my head round the issue of bottlenecks, which we hear about a lot. I can understand that some have arisen from the Brexit shambles, but I am told that containers being in the wrong place as a result of Covid, or people restocking—perhaps overstocking, because the just-in-time concept is a bit wobbly at the moment so people take extra goods to cope with it—cause other bottlenecks.
How many bottlenecks will resolve themselves when containers are in the right place and stocks are full again? There must be a point at which that situation will ease in certain aspects, although perhaps not in others. I am trying to understand where that easing might come from. Can Richard Ballantyne come in on that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Colin Beattie
I turn to Professor Fernandes. Did you hear my original question? Is he there?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 24 November 2021
Colin Beattie
You have certainly given me a different perspective on the issue. I wonder whether Robert Windsor has a view on the question.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Colin Beattie
Is there a way of bringing older workers back into the supply chain in a productive way to ease some of the pressures that we face?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Colin Beattie
It would be interesting if you could give us figures that compare us to our competitors. That is really important.
We have heard that 157,000 people are actively looking for work and that there is a disconnect with skills. Over the years, we have consistently heard from companies that focus on hiring older staff, such as B and Q, that those workers are more productive, loyal and consistent in their work than some younger workers. Older staff are clearly a resource that many companies value. I assume that some of those 157,000 people are older people who are looking for work. We are looking for a quick fix. Is there nothing that we can do to tap into those resources better than we are, in order to provide immediate cover in certain areas?
10:45Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scotland’s Supply Chain
Meeting date: 17 November 2021
Colin Beattie
Having had the opportunity to listen to all that has already been said, I understand that there is no quick fix to our current supply chain problems and our labour and skills shortages. Chris Brodie said that there are about 823,000 economically inactive people, of whom about 20 per cent are actively looking for work. The figure seems very high. Is that in line with our competitor economies? Do you have a figure at your fingertips, Chris?
