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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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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Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Absolutely. I agree with that, Fulton, and maybe we should think about staff members in that regard, as well as police officers. I propose that we keep the issue on our programme and come back to it down the line. Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
You are correct. It works with offenders in that field.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Item 3 is consideration of a number of items of correspondence that the committee received during the summer recess. I refer members to paper 2. As you will see, the clerks have suggested some follow-up actions in the table in paragraph 3.
I propose that we take each letter in turn. I will ask the committee for any views, and then for agreement, on how we wish to proceed with each of them.
We will start with the letter that the committee received from the Minister for Community Safety in relation to legal aid. Do members wish to make any comments on the correspondence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you very much for that. Members have made valid points, not least in recognising what, at this point, the committee’s role is and is not.
I found both sets of correspondence to be comprehensive and helpful in setting out the historical context for today’s legal aid provision. It is clearly not a straightforward situation and challenges remain with regard to everyone getting to where they would like to be. I agree with Collette Stevenson about our ideally having a system that meets the needs of those who work in it and those who are in receipt of the services that are provided through legal aid.
I do not want to repeat the points that members have already covered. I am therefore happy to pick them up and link with SPICe to get further information on the context of all of this, as well as the timeline that Jamie Greene has mentioned, which would be helpful.
I note that the Scottish Government is currently in negotiations and has undertaken to update us on their progress, as well as on the review of the Public Defence Solicitors Office. I am happy for us to write the minister for an update on that progress and to refer to the Edinburgh Bar Association letter that we received yesterday. We will also cover the issue in our budget scrutiny, as it will form an important part of that forthcoming process.
I therefore propose that we link with SPICe and write to the minister on the points that we have raised. Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
I move to our second letter, which is from the Scottish Government and outlines its plans following the consultation on the not proven verdict and other matters. Yesterday in Parliament we heard an update in relation to the programme for government around the proposals to abolish the not proven verdict.
Do members wish to make any comments on that correspondence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
If there are no other comments from members, I am happy to write and ask for that information.
The next letter is from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans on the funding for recovery cafes in Scottish prisons. Are there comments on that correspondence? Obviously, we are aware of the statement on the national mission that will be made in Parliament—I think tomorrow—which might also incorporate an update on work to progress provisions such as recovery cafes. Are members happy to agree to the suggested recommendations in regard to that letter?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
I agree. I found the letter very helpful in setting out quite a lot of information that had either slipped off my radar or that I was not aware of.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
I will pull things together from both pieces of correspondence. Mr Evans’s update tells us that the SPA’s people committee is leading its oversight of police numbers. The SPA received an update in June, and at that time it was satisfied with where work was taking Police Scotland in responding to the numbers of people who are leaving. The SPA asked for further information on the leavers’ reasons for leaving, and that is set out to an extent in the correspondence.
On policing performance, Mr Evans’s update informs us that the appropriate SPA committee—the policing performance committee—is monitoring that issue. I took a little bit of reassurance from that.
Then there is the important area of wellbeing, which the committee has looked at recently. Members will know that we have a session coming up in which we will consider policing and mental health, including both the response to poor mental health in communities, which we have spoken about, and the impact of the demands of policing on police officer and staff mental health. In that session, I would certainly want us to probe the issues that we have spoken about today.
On the financial issues that we have raised and the coming budget constraints, we will obviously consider those closely during our forthcoming budget scrutiny process, which will be in late October.
There is a lot for us to think about and discuss. I anticipate that both Mr Evans and Mr Page will be invited to give evidence at our evidence sessions on the budget. If members agree, we will take forward in those two forums the issues that we have discussed today.
