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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
That would be great.
I will open up the questioning to members with supplementaries. Brian—do you want to come in?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
When we spoke to many suffering from long Covid, we found that one of the issues that they face is the prevalence of Covid that is still in the community—indeed, it is a major concern. I note that the Scottish Government is currently undertaking the autumn and winter booster programme, but as of 12 March, only just over 2 million people had taken up the winter booster, whereas 4.5 million got the first booster and just over 4.3 million got the second. There seems to be apathy among the general public about taking up the boosters, and that has grown over time. Does the Scottish Government still believe that it is important that people continue to take up what the vaccine programme offers? If so, what public health messaging is being put out there to encourage people with regard to the importance of having the booster?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I also want to thank you for yesterday’s update on the reallocation of unspent funds to 10 new projects that are being led by the third sector.
During the inquiry, the committee has been keen to hear from people with lived experience of long Covid; we have taken evidence from a lot of groups of people suffering from the condition and have received more than 500 responses from the general public to our call for views. I will share with you a comment from Jane Ormerod from Long Covid Scotland, who said:
“What the Government says is happening and the reality for people with lived experience do not match up. I agree that different things are happening in different health boards and that consistency is an issue. I know that everywhere is different and that the geography is different, but there needs to be overall consistency and shared principles of what that should look like in each health board”.—[Official Report, COVID-19 Recovery Committee, 9 February 2023; c 13.]
As we have gone through this inquiry, it has become evident to the committee that all the health boards are doing different things. I appreciate that some boards have experienced delays in recruiting to posts in order to implement pathways for taking care of people with long Covid, but are there any plans to develop guidance for NHS boards on specific pathways for people with the condition?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
I move to my last question. I know that recruitment is a problem in the NHS at the moment. How can health boards be supported to recruit for long Covid posts, and to what extent would recurrent funding address the recruitment issues that health boards have highlighted?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Thank you very much. We will move to questions from members, starting with Murdo Fraser.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
That is very helpful. I thank all the witnesses for their evidence and time. If any witness would like to provide further evidence to the committee, they can do so in writing. The clerks will be happy to liaise with witnesses on how to do that.
The committee’s next meeting will be on 16 March, when we will conclude our long Covid inquiry with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.
That concludes the public part of our meeting. We now move into private session.
10:52 Meeting continued in private until 11:01.COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
I will ask a quick question, Dr Scott, regarding the STIMULATE-ICP programme, which I have not heard of before. You said that it is being rolled out in England. Is it being rolled out in Wales? The Welsh have a similar approach to the way that Scotland is doing things.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2023 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. This morning, we will continue our inquiry into long Covid.
I welcome to the meeting Euan Dick, head of the chief scientist office; Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak, chief scientist for health at the chief scientist office; Professor Chris Robertson, professor of public health epidemiology at the University of Strathclyde; Professor Kay Cooper, clinical professor of allied health professions at Robert Gordon University and NHS Grampian; and Professor Edward Duncan from the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Research Unit at the University of Stirling. Dr Janet Scott, who is a consultant in infectious diseases at NHS Highland and an affiliate senior clinical lecturer at the Medical Research Council-University of Glasgow centre for virus research, is joining us online. Thank you for giving us your time this morning.
We estimate that this evidence session will run up to about 20 to 11. Members will probably have about 12 minutes each to ask questions. As Janet Scott is attending the meeting remotely, she should type an R in the chat box, please, if she would like to respond to an issue that is being discussed, and we will bring her in. I am keen for everybody to get an opportunity to speak so, if time runs on too much, I might have to interrupt members or witnesses in the interests of brevity. I apologise in advance for that.
I ask the witnesses briefly to introduce themselves and the work that they have been doing. I will start with Dr Scott because, like me, she is online.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
I will stay with you for one final question, Dame Anna. What oversight has there been of how research funding across the UK has been allocated?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Long Covid Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Siobhian Brown
That is great.
I open up my next question to all the witnesses. If someone wants to answer, they can let me know by raising their hand, because, given that I am online, it is difficult for me to see who wants to answer.
Are you aware of any additional or on-going funding streams for long Covid research that could be utilised?
